The Danish Consulate General in Shanghai co-hosted a seminar on early childhood education together with Shanghai Women’s Federation, China Welfare Institute, Scientific Child Raising Center and 5 other EU member states’ Consulates General as well as Chinese partners on Thursday June 14.
More than 100 professors, teachers, students and experts within the field of early childhood education were gathered at the Shanghai Scientific Child Raising Centre for an EU-China seminar. The seminar was the culmination of more than 1 years’ work and featured several prominent guests.
The day was kicked off by speeches from Ms Li Rong, the Vice Chairperson of Shanghai Women’s Federation and Danish Consul General to Shanghai, Ms Susanne Hyldelund. In her speech Ms Hyldelund highlighted the fact that 2012 is the official EU-China year of intercultural dialogue which means increased emphasis on cultural activities and exchanges between China and the EU.
“These activities will cover other related fields which contribute to mutual understanding and civil society exchanges, in particular education, research and exchanges between experts, multilingualism and youth.”
Moreover, the event featured keynote speeches by Benedicte Helvad, Director of the Children Culture Network under the Danish Ministry of Culture on ‘Art and culture in the early childhood’ and Huang Qiong, Director of Preschool and Especial Education at Shanghai Education Commission on ‘Preschool education: best practice and implications”. Subsequently two panels discussed the importance and impact of creativity and policy making & games and toys.
After lunch representatives from Denmark, Hungary, Germany, Italy, Spain and France each sponsored a workshop to showcase some of their countries’ best practices within early childhood education. The workshops were visited by attending guests as well as kindergarten children to enable the guests to see the methods in action.
Food and beverages for the event were kindly sponsored by: Dr Oetker, Greek Taverna Milos and Vienna Café.
