Jointly organized by HOPE International Education and Suzhou Association for Non-Government Education, The School Link Forum Suzhou 2025 was held at Suzhou Teacher’s Academy on 17th Oct. Bosworth Independent School, Cardiff Six Form College, Cheshire College South and West, Royal Hospital School, and Management and Development Institute of Singapore (MDIS) participated in this forum. About 20 local private/international schools were invited to the forum.

Linking with Chinese school for recruitment purpose is becoming a key strategy to promotion, recruitment and profile raising for overseas schools in China. As Chinese schools and education go international, more and more Chinese primary and secondary schools are exploring links with overseas schools for students and staff exchange via summer and winter camps or short immersion programmes. This campaign is very much supported by the local education authority.

Overseas schools can take the opportunity to promote their schools, schools’ short-term and long-term programmes, as well as to seek other opportunities such as teacher training, 2+1 joint programme with partner schools etc. Partnership , schools in China can also be an endorsement for profile raising as well as for recruitment.

As advised by one of the keynote speakers at the forum, Daniel Zheng, Managing Director of Hope International, international partnership can assist and enhance the school development at different horizon but at the same time, communication, respect, trust and understanding different culture are key to a successful partnership.

Another keynote speaker, Jon Fei, Principal of Dulwich International High School Suzhou also introduced how his school has been engaged in partnership with UK schools from curriculum, staff communication and development, and students exchange.

There were two panel discussions over the forum with panelists from all the overseas institutions and two local international schools: Panel discussion 1: How do we train ‘top’ students?Panel discussion 2: How can international collaboration assist school development?

After panel discussions, the participating local schools who have interests in establishing sister school relationships or carrying out cooperation programmes came to overseas institutions’ stands for an individual appointment to discuss cooperation possibilities in details.  

In the afternoon, organized and led by HOPE team, overseas school representatives were separated into two groups to visit two local international schools in Suzhou to consolidate the initial contacts established early.

Hope organizes such event once a year and has already help over 30 Chinese schools pairing with schools from the UK, US, Australia and Singapore in the past.