From April 14 to 17, 2021, the High-level Symposium on Promoting Rural Revitalization via Education: Reviews and Prospects of International Education Cooperation Projects was held in Lanzhou, Gansu Province. Northwest Normal University hosted the symposium and UNESCO INRULED (International Research and Training Centre for Rural Education) participated in the preparatory work as a co-organizer. Wang Jiayi, Member of the Standing Committee of Gansu Provincial Party Committee and Minister of Publicity, and Song Lei, Deputy Director of the Department of Teachers' Work of the Ministry of Education, attended and delivered a speech. Also, Xu Hui, Member of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC) and Deputy Director of the NPC Constitution and Law Committee, gave a keynote speech entitled Reflections on the Deployment and Legislation of Rural Revitalization Strategy. More than 80 experts and educator representatives from education research units, colleges and education departments attended the conference.

Accompanied by representatives of the Centre, Zeng Xiaodong, the Executive Director of INRULED and Zhang Lili, Chief Expert of INRULED attended the symposium and gave speeches on the sub-forums of Cases and Reflections on the Practice of Rural Education Revitalization and Cases and Reflections on the Practice of Education Open to the World in the New Era. Zeng Xiaodong shared the Centre’s upcoming project Community Support for Early Education in Namibia, raising the crucial conceptual design issues during China’s rapid transition from receiving aid to aiding others, which aroused heated discussions and reflections among the experts.

The symposium reviewed many important international projects, including UNESCO/ APEID Joint Innovative Project on Raising the Achievement Level of Children in Primary Education (JIP), the UNICEF Project, China-Britain Basic Education Project, China-Europe Basic Education Project, the World Bank Loan for Basic Education Project, etc.. Through reviews and discussions, the symposium aims to draw wisdom from the projects for rural education international cooperation project in Gansu. By effectively adopting international resources to promote China’s education development and capacity building, we hope to provide new ideas for China's rural education reform in the context of rural revitalization and a new model for the opening up of China's education in the new era.