The Jorge Álvares Foundation (FJA) is preparing to launch a digital platform to encourage more Portuguese to study at Chinese universities, as well as Chinese to study in Portugal.

Fernanda Ilhéu, from the FJA Board of Directors, told Lusa that each university and polytechnic in Portugal, mainland China and Macau will have the right to manage their own space on the platform, where they can post their educational offer.

The objective is to make it easier for students to consult the information about courses, programs, professors’ profiles, enrollment conditions and tuition fees.

The FJA will also provide information on “the surrounding environment”, for example on the cities where the ‘campuses’ of the institutions and available university residences are located.

The platform will also have useful information, namely on obtaining visas, opening bank accounts, taking out insurance and accessing health services for foreign students.

Although Mainland China and Macau currently do not allow the entry of foreign students, Fernanda Ilhéu said she believed that the platform could have a positive effect in a post-covid-19 future.

“We hope that the pandemic will be controlled soon and the quarantine situations will be lifted”, stressed the researcher.

The FJA platform also aims to promote cooperation between Chinese and Portuguese higher education institutions in the field of scientific research.

The portal will have a specific area to help researchers identify potential research partners, share works and publications and organize joint events.

The platform’s modelling design phase should be completed at the end of April, followed by dissemination to higher education and scientific research institutions in Portugal, Macau and China.

The FJA is a structure created in December 1999, within the framework of the transfer of Portuguese administration from Macau to China, and aims to promote intercultural dialogue between Lisbon and the Chinese special administrative region.

Since 2016, the president of the Jorge Álvares Foundation (named after the Portuguese and the first European to arrive in China by sea in the 16th century) has been General Garcia Leandro, governor of Macau between 1974 and 1979.

In January, Zhao Zilin, a student at the Shanghai University of International Studies, won the first edition of the Jorge Álvares Foundation Awards, for work on relations between Portugal and China.

China continues to feel a strong demand for professionals who speak Portuguese, Catarina Gaspar and Madalena Teixeira, two of the co-authors of academic work on Chinese students of the Portuguese language, presented on January 14, told Lusa.

About 50 Chinese higher education institutions have Portuguese language courses, Gaspar Zhang Yunfeng, the coordinator of the Pedagogical and Scientific Center for the Portuguese Language of the Polytechnic Institute of Macau, told Lusa in November 2020.

Source: Macau Business