Recently, the Sino-Belarusian cooperative education program in Mechanical Design, Manufacturing and Automation, jointly offered by Xinxiang University and Brest State Technical University (BSTU) in Belarus, reached a historic milestone—the first cohort of graduates successfully completed the Belarusian State Graduation Examinations and the joint Sino-foreign thesis (design) defenses.
Brest State Technical University specially established a State Examination Committee and administered the Belarusian graduation exams on April 15. The committee was chaired by Alexander Georgievich Klemenyevsky, First Deputy General Director and Chief Engineer of Brest Electromechanical Group, with members including Associate Professor Dai Wenqi from Belarusian National Technical University, Senior Lecturer Alexander Viktorovich Frantsevich from the Department of Industrial Process Automation at BSTU, and Senior Lecturer Kirill Timurovich Abasov from the Department of Mechanics.
On April 19, the thesis (design) defenses for the program took place as scheduled. The defense committee was composed of both Chinese and Belarusian supervisors, and the proceedings were conducted bilingually. On the same day, Vice Presidents Han Hui and Gao Xuexia, along with relevant directors and faculty from the Academic Affairs Office, the School of Mechatronic Engineering, and the School of International Education, visited the defense site to oversee the process. They met with the students and the Chinese and international faculty teams, fully affirming the organization of the defenses.
During the defense sessions, Chinese and Belarusian experts attentively listened to student presentations, posed questions centered on core professional issues, and offered comments on students’design concepts, technical approaches, and innovative points from the perspective of international engineering education standards. Students presented and answered in fluent Russian or Chinese, demonstrating solid professional knowledge, strong bilingual skills, and qualified international academic competence.
Following the defenses, the School of International Education, together with the School of Mechatronic Engineering, held discussions with the Belarusian representatives, engaging in in-depth exchanges on the program’s future operation and talent cultivation optimization. Brest State Technical University places great importance on its strategic partnership with Xinxiang University. The deep cooperative friendship and practical results between the two institutions fully demonstrate the high-level, comprehensive mutual trust and mutually beneficial cooperation between China and Belarus. Associate Professor Dai Wenqi put forward targeted and actionable constructive advisory opinions on key matters such as curriculum improvement, course design optimization, enrollment scale regulation, and program renewal and duration, providing valuable references for the program’s sustained high-quality development.
Vice Presidents Han Hui and Gao Xuexia provided meticulous guidance on all aspects of the defense process, explicitly outlining requirements and considerations. They emphasized that the successful completion of the first cohort’s graduation design defense marks a significant transition for the Sino-Belarusian cooperative education program: from the initial stage of“establishing the framework and implementing operations”to a new phase of high-quality development focused on“improving quality and efficiency, strengthening and excelling.”They called for continuing to leverage the program’s bilingual teaching features and dual-degree advantages, deepening the integration of Chinese and foreign education, continuously enhancing the core quality of talent cultivation, and truly running a people-satisfying Sino-foreign cooperative education program. In doing so, Xinxiang University seeks to contribute to the high-quality development of the national Belt and Road Initiative and to deepen practical cooperation in education between China and Belarus.
The successful conclusion of these graduation examinations and defenses marks not only the successful completion of the first talent cultivation cycle of the program but also a new starting point for deeper collaboration and joint talent cultivation between the two universities. Looking ahead, Xinxiang University will continue to deepen its strategic cooperation with Brest State Technical University, expand the scope of collaboration, enrich the content of partnership, continuously optimize the international talent cultivation system, and strive to cultivate more high-quality engineering talents who possess patriotism, a global vision, professional excellence, and strong practical abilities—thus continuously writing new chapters in inter-institutional cooperation and Sino-Belarusian educational exchange.
