This is a Special English Broadcasting for New Year's Day. Today we have an exclusive interview with Lai Hairong, Party Secretary of FPNU.

H1: I am Miya. An MTI Postgraduate and an intern of Office of International Cooperation and Exchange of FPNU.

H2: I am Nikki, a junior student majoring in English.  

H3: I am Sally. a sophomore majoring in English.

H2: We are pleased to have Professor Lai Hairong at this program for the first time .

H3: Welcome!

L: Thank you

As we all know, the establishment of Fujian Polytechnic Normal University marked that the development of the university has started a new journey. And under the leadership of new leading group, significant changes have taken place in our university, such as the upgrading of teaching facilities and working environment. As a saying goes on campus that the only thing unchanged is that changes occur every day, and we in the university have the feeling of being pushed to be better.

H1: So Professor Lai, in your eyes, what are the obvious changes in our campus?

L:Thank you very much for your question. Of course, obviously that in the past year we have done a lot of jobs. Let me try to list a number of them chronologically. In February, we signed an agreement with Fujian Fuqing city government. With this agreement, Fuqing city government will financially support us, which is amounted to 20,000,000 Chinese yuan a year in the coming five years. In August, one of the oversea Chinese Dr. Lin Lianxing and entrepreneur in Indonesia signed an agreement with our university. He will donate 10,000,000 Chinese yuan to our university to build facility and also in late August, we achieved to have three elementary schools and middle schools in Fuqing to be attached to us. And in September, we succeeded in getting the accreditation for issuing bachelor degree to our students. And then in October, we succeeded in having an attachment school in Xiamen, so we have a plan to operate in Xiamen city, and also in late October, we manage to have a big support from Fuqing city government, the leadership of Fuqing city government decided to help us build a new campus, this will be a big new campus which will include around 850Chinese acres , 3 hundred thousand square meters of building which will help us accommodate more than 5000 students, which will allow the scale of our university to became a scale of 15,000 students. And in November, we succeeded in organizing a Fujian Provincial Vocational Education Teacher’s Development League. Under this League, we are linking 130 out of 166 vocational middle schools across Fujian Province. And in November, in December. We succeeded in building up a number of research centers, for example, Center for Japan Studies, Research Center for China & Indonesia Industrial Cooperation Studies and also Center for International Comparative Study for Vocational Education. In December, we managed to get a accreditation for jointly issuing master degree in major of food processing. So of course, in past years, we have done a lot of jobs and we made a lot of achievements.

H3: So among those changes you have mentioned, what is the most satisfying change and why？

L: Two things impressed me most. I think all of the above mention things are very important new things to our university, but among them two things are most important for me, from my point of view. One is that, as I  mentioned, in October, Fuqing city government decided to support us in building new campus. Because our university have a lot of advantages and also have some inadequacies. One of the biggest inadequacies of our university is the relatively backward infrastructure, so we are good in software but we are not so good in infrastructure. With the help from Fuqing city government, we have a brand new campus in the coming three to four years. We will greatly improve the facility of our university will help our university to upgrade to a new level. This is one of the most impressive thing. The second thing is the formation of Fujian Provincial Vocational Education Teacher’s Development League. With this League, we have, we began to have the responsibility of helping all the vocational middle schools, secondary education in this province. This is a prestige and also a huge responsibility and I think this responsibility will build up a momentum for this university to move to a higher level.

H3: Thank you, so great. We feel so proud of our university’s achievements! And I believe all students would be cheerful witnessing these great changes.

L:Yes,yes, thank you.

H2: Well Professor Lai, What efforts do you think are the catalysts for these changes?

L: Thank you. I think one of the most biggest momentum for the changes I have mentioned is that the new leadership of our university is reaching out to the society. Our president, vice president, vice party secretary and also I, as a member of these leadership, in the past year, we have been going out of university to reach out to local government, to enterprises, to the community surrounding us. We have visited dozens of officials in provincial administration, we've visited dozens of officials working in Fuzhou city government and Fuqing city government. We went out of the university to visit dozens of entrepreneurs who have nationwide reputation and worldwide reputation. We also went out of the campus to visit dozens and even hundreds of our alumni working in all works of life in Fujian Province. By reaching out to the society, we are known to the society, and we manage to attract the support from different parts of the society, we begin to be able to manage more resources than before . So I think these reaching out efforts is the catalyst which bring all these changes, I think.

H2: Well, I totally agree with that. It’s so important to strengthen the communication between our university and the whole society, including like the government and entrepreneurs. And the future of the students in our university will certainly be brighter under this context.

L: Obviously, yeah.

H1:Well, Professor Lai, being the leader of FPNU, could you share the future prospects？

L: Of our university?

H1: Yes.

L: Yes, yes, of course. I think the university will have a great future. The reason is that we are meeting the demands of the development of the nation, because China is the No.2 economy in the world, and will be No.1 economy in the world in the coming 10-20 years. Uh, only when China’s real economy, industrial development can get its pace, will China achieve this No.1 place, this goal. If you want to develop industries, manufacturing, you need talents in applied science and technology, you need skilled workers, engineers to work in these industries. It is the mission of the university to train, to nurture talents in applied science and technology, in skilled workers. So um, by meeting the demands of the development of the nation, we will have a special role, the unique role to play in the coming years, that is the reason why we will have a great future. And in Particular, because we're located in Fuqing city, there are a number of world-class enterprises in the city, by having close cooperation with first-class, world-class enterprises, some of our majors, I believe, will reach the place of first class major in the world. Thank you.

H1：That’s fantastic. It’s such an ambitious plan that it needs all faculty, teachers and students of FPNU to unite as one, and I believe everyone in FPNU has the passion to make contributions to it. So Professor Lai, could you give some advice about what teachers and students can do in a common effort?

L: Um, I think one of the very important issues is that the teachers and students need to understand the mission and vision of our university, have a common understanding on it. Different university plays different role in the world and in this nation. You can contribute more on humanity, you can contribute more on social sciences, you can contribute more on research on natural sciences, and our university’s mission is in applied science and technology, in nurturing talents for vocational education. So once our teachers, our students have a deep understanding and fully agree with this mission, can we act as one, and only with this we can move, we can act powerfully.

H2: Yeah, that’s right. Thank you for your sincere advice. And I believe it will inspire all students in our university. As you said before, “Every place can be a good starting point” .Our university provides us with a platform for us to chase our dreams. Through the common effort of teachers and students, we are confident that 2022 will be another leap for FPNU! As the New Year is coming, what would you like to say to the faculty, students and staff of FPNU and also to all the friends who've been caring and supporting us all the time at home and abroad？

L: Thank you very much. So in the past year, we are thankful to all the friends of this university and also to our staff and students for their hardworking and their generous support to our university. And in this coming year, I hope that our staff will work harder, our students will study harder and have a happy new year. And our friends within China and outside of China will have a prosperous and happy new year. Thank you very much.

Thank you.  

H1: That’s all for today. Thank you for your time and sharing. For more information, please visit en.fpnu.edu.cn. Thank you for listening.