Deng Xidong, president of Hubei Three Gorges Polytechnic signed contracts on October 26th with the representatives of The IWK Ltd and The Burchard Führer Ltd in Yichang for cooperation in professional education and training of elderly care (EC), and inaugurated the Three Gorges Polytechnic (TGP) Sino-German Institute for Elderly Care.

　　The IWK Ltd is the largest vocational education institution of professional nursing training in German with 16 campuses, and generally provide order-training for the enterprises in the mode of “dual system”. The other cooperator, The Burchard Führer Ltd, is also a German corporation of nursing services provision with 3,200 staff members, consisting of over 40 nursing homes, 16 mobile and full-day care hubs and 3 apartment buildings for the disabled.

　　In order to enhance the internationalization of talent training through international communication and cooperation, Hubei Three Gorges Polytechnic has been cooperating with the above two institutions(The Burchard Führer Ltd and The IWK Ltd) since 2016 and started international education and training for senior EC caregivers and managers.

　　Early on July 21st, 2016, presidents of the two groups—The Burchard Führer Ltd and The IWK Ltd visited Yichang and communicated with the relevant staff of Hubei Three Gorges Polytechnic. The two parties shared their opinions through sufficient discussions on vocational education and training for as well as employment of the EC caregivers and managers in the project of Sino-German cooperation, and signed a memorandum of cooperation. In the following year, the two sides had discussed thoroughly the details of cooperation through e-mails and phone calls.

　　During the two weeks from August 13th to 27th, 2017, 5 experts of EC education and training at the Medical School of Three Gorges Polytechnic visited Dessau-Roßlau, Sachsen-Anhalt, Germany at the invitation of The Burchard Führer Ltd and The IWK Ltd, where they spent two weeks for study and communication on elderly care and gained a profound understanding of the relationship between the population pressure in Germany and its social development, the training of nursing and elderly care as well as the college education system of nursing, and they also had carefully studied the EC service system and the services provision of EC services faculties of Germany through visits, lectures, interactive communications, etc..

　　It is learned that the two parties, on the basis of the establishment of TGP Sino-German Institute for Elderly Care and TGP Overseas Caregiver and Manager Training and Career Center, will have a in-depth discussion and cooperation in the aspects of introduction of German vocational standards and curriculum of nursing, research and promotion of the theory and technology of traditional Chinese medicine, exchange of and training for the teaching staff of medical treatment and nursing between China and Germany and introduction of German certification standards of EC caregivers of nurses. (Reporter Hu Xingjun and Correspondent Zhang Bokang)