On September 1^st, BUCM President Xu Anlong and President Alan Davis of the Kwantlen Polytechnic University (KPU) attended  the official state visit by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to China in Shanghai, and attended the Sino-Canadian trade agreement signing ceremony at the eleventh Group of Twenty (G20) Leaders Summit.

At the ceremony, President Xu Anlong and President Davis Alan signed a cooperation agreement on a joint undergraduate degree program of TCM on behalf of the two universities. Ms. Chrystia Freeland, Canadian Minister of International Trade, attended and witnessed the signature.

President Xu Anlong said at the ceremony that the signing of the agreement is very meaningful for the training of international TCM professionals. BUCM's first joint degree program in collaboration with a public university in North America aims to cultivate more excellent TCM doctors for better health and well-being of the Canadian people, promoting the international influence of BUCM.

After the signing ceremony, the Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met with the signatories to the agreement and had a group photo taken.

Kwantlen Polytechnic University is a public, comprehensive, polytechnic university offering undergraduate education recognized by the Canadian authority of higher education. In 2013, the governor of BC province of Canada made it clear in his speech that a college of TCM at provincial level would be established in his term to provide formal TCM education. For this purpose, KPU has negotiated with BUCM several times, after which the two decided to co-establish a TCM college so that a formal TCM higher education system could be set up in Canada. In 2014, the first public college of traditional Chinese medicine in North America was founded jointly by the two universities with the approval from Ministry of Education of BC province. In the first half of 2016, the college has been accredited for a two-year acupuncture and moxibustion diploma course. Students who have completed the course are automatically entitled to take the Pan-Canadian Exam for Acupuncturist. In order to achieve the original goal of the cooperation between the two universities, mutual recognition of credits and a joint diploma + degree program have been made possible thanks to the efforts from both sides. Students that have graduated from the acupuncture and moxibustion program at KPU can further their studies for the last two years in a five-year undergraduate degree program at BUCM after passing a BUCM entrance exam. After passing the BUCM graduation examination, they will receive a Bachelor's Degree in traditional Chinese medicine at BUCM. This is the first TCM undergraduate degree program in public higher education in Canada.

The signature of this cooperation agreement on TCM undergraduate education between the two universities is an important achievement of Sino-Canadian cooperation in education during the Canadian Prime Minister's visit to China. It will have a far-reaching influence on the dissemination of TCM in Canada and on the establishment and standardization of higher education of traditional Chinese medicine in Canada.

(International Cooperation Department)