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Shanghai: Premier Jacinta Allan will return from China with an agreement with Beijing to establish more student exchanges and promote the teaching of Mandarin in Victorian schools after securing a personal meeting with China’s Minister for Education.
The meeting, attended by Australian ambassador to the People’s Republic of China Scott Dewar, is likely to be Allan’s highest-level engagement with the ruling Communist Party during her first trip to China.
Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan has secured a formal agreement with China’s Minister for Education Huai Jinpeng.
Allan and Huai Jinpeng signed a memorandum of understanding to establish a joint working group with Victorian and Chinese officials which will meet once a year to facilitate greater two-way exchanges of primary, secondary and tertiary students.
The agreement builds on preliminary work done by Allan’s predecessor, Daniel Andrews, in 2023 when he met with Huai Jinpeng to re-establish relations after the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted international education and tourism.
Allan, who has nominated “education, education, education” as the priorities for her newly released China Strategy, said the agreement would provide more opportunities for Victorian teachers and students to learn about Chinese culture.
In a statement released by China’s Ministry for Education, Huai Jinpeng said he had “positively evaluated” educational co-operation between China and Victoria.
Allan released her China Strategy on Monday with a focus on education.Credit: Nine News
Referencing improved relations between the two countries since the election of the Albanese government, he said he “hoped both sides will implement the consensus of the leaders of the two countries, explore new models and launch new projects” in student exchanges and joint research.
Details of the agreement emerged as Allan’s travelling party shifted at high speed from Beijing to Shanghai, stopping off at Melbourne’s sister city of Nanjing for a meeting with the governor of Jiangsu province, Xu Kunlin.
Before boarding a Fuxing Hao train capable of exceeding 350km/h, Allan revealed that approval had been granted for Chinese energy company Trina Solar to build a $435 million battery farm in Victoria’s Kiewa Valley.
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Allan said the Kiewa Valley Battery Energy Storage System, in the state’s north-east, would have capacity to store enough renewable energy to supply 172,000 homes. While Allan met representatives of Trina Solar in Beijing, the deal was inked before she left Melbourne.
“When I released Victoria’s China strategy yesterday, I made it clear that one of our key priority areas was to partner with China businesses to invest more in renewable energy, in clean energy, in Victoria,” she said “We’re doing this as part of our strategy to bring more jobs for working people and families into Victoria.”
The premier was less expansive about the details of a transport announcement scheduled for later this week and whether it is related to her pet infrastructure project, the Suburban Rail Loop.
When repeatedly questioned about it on Tuesday, Allan replied that she’d have more to say in due course.
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The government is due to award a $9 billion contract to install the tracks and operating systems for SRL East and build six stations on the proposed new line between Cheltenham and Box Hill.
This masthead reported in May that the government’s preferred bidder for the “line-wide″ contract – the richest associated with the $34.5 billion project so far – was TransitLinX, a consortium comprising the Chinese-owned John Holland, WSP, Alstom, RATP Dev and KBR.
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