NEWS FLASH
NEWS FLASH
Largest U.S. Education Provider Gets Approval to Enter Chinese Market
A PRESS CONFERENCE WILL BE HELD IN BEIJING, CHINA
DATE: WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 25 2004
TIME: 10AM BEIJING TIME
PLACE: CONFERENCE HALL, BEIJING UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
RSVP AT CIBT BEIJING Tel: (86-10) 8601-4479 or (86-10) 6739-3399
BACKGROUND
China’s National Bureau of Statistics has recently reported that over 320 million students are enrolled in 1.35 million schools across China, making it the largest education system in the world. Although China’s population of 1.3 billion is over 4 times that of the US there are only approximately 1600 universities in China serving 16M Chinese students as compared to 4,500 universities in United States serving 15.8M US students. University and college enrollment in China has doubled since 1998 from 8 million to approximately 16 million. With China’s total economic output expected to surpass US$1.2 trillion this year, along with the recent steep rise in foreign direct investment, demands for Western trained business and technology executives in China has never been greater.
WORLD CLASS PLAYER
Apollo Group, Inc. (NASD: APOL) (“The Group”), through its subsidiary and international expansion arm, Western International University (“WIU”), enters the China education market upon receiving official approval from the Beijing Municipal Education Commission (“BMEC”) to offer bachelor degree programs in co-operation with CIBT School of Business (“CIBT”), a leading business school in China.
The Group is the largest for profit education provider in the United States. Through its subsidiaries, it provides higher education in business and technology and designs its programs for working adults to prepare them for leadership positions in a dynamic, global marketplace. Under this partnership, WIU and CIBT introduce an innovative concept of undergraduate education to China by targeting China’s Associate Degree holders with at least two years of working experience and allowing them to transfer their Chinese diploma credits towards a U.S. degree. WIU’s bachelor programs will be delivered by CIBT at its Beijing campus so that students will be able to earn a U.S. bachelor degree without having to leave Chinese soil.
Under Chinese law, degrees offered in China by foreign institutions are only recognized in the country when officially approved by the education regulatory bodies. Attaining official accreditation for WIU and CIBT’s joint programs means that the degrees are recognized in both the U.S. and China. Incidentally, they are also the first bachelor degrees offered by foreign institutions, to receive recognition from the Chinese government. Hence, this announcement marks the start of a new era of modernization and globalization of academic standards in China.
ABOUT CIBT
Founded in 1994, CIBT School of Business, a subsidiary of Capital Alliance Group Inc., is a recognized business school in Beijing, China. CIBT operates three campuses in Beijing and three learning centres in two other provinces. CIBT has an academic partnership with Beijing University of Technology and delivers post-secondary business and technology education to students and corporations in China. By cooperating with leading education providers in North America, Europe and Asia, CIBT continually offers advanced curricula to meet the needs of China’s growing economy.
