At 60, ECNU program continues to be a magnet for international students

When Vietnamese student Doan Bao Tran stepped onto the campus of East China Normal University in Shanghai, she walked a path her mother had traced two decades earlier.

"ECNU isn't just my school, it's my second home," said Vu Thanh Xuan, Tran's mother, who completed both her master's and doctoral studies at the university. In 2003, Xuan made the decision to leave her 17-month-old daughter in Vietnam to pursue her academic dreams in Shanghai.

After completing her studies, Xuan returned to Vietnam to teach Chinese language at University of Languages and International Studies of Vietnam National University, Hanoi. There, she shared stories of her life in Shanghai, planting seeds of curiosity in the minds of her students, and her own daughter too. "Since I was very young, I had always wondered about life in Shanghai and at ECNU through my mother's stories," said Tran, who is currently studying international business at the university. "Now, I can finally experience it myself."

This mother-daughter story exemplifies the impact of ECNU's international education program and Chinese language instruction, which celebrated its 60th anniversary in October with a series of commemorative events.

From its beginnings with 210 international students in 1965, ECNU has grown to host over 3,100 international students from 114 countries this year, nurturing more than 100,000 overseas alumni over six decades.

The story of ECNU's international education began when China declared international student education as an essential internationalist obligation. As New China's first normal university founded in 1951, ECNU embraced this mission by establishing its foreign student affairs office and Chinese language teaching department.

Among the first cohort of 210 Vietnamese students was Hoang Tra, who arrived at age 18. "The 1960s saw frequent exchanges between Vietnam and China across many fields," Tra said. "I believed learning Chinese would be useful."

After returning to Vietnam in 1966, Tra dedicated four decades to teaching Chinese at Vietnam National University, Hanoi, inspiring many of his students to pursue studies in China and at ECNU.

In 1985, ECNU became one of the first four universities in China to offer an undergraduate program in Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language. This marked the transition of Chinese language education from mere language training to an independent academic discipline.