Normal College
Normal College of Shenzhen University was founded in 1995 after being accredited by Shenzhen Municipal Government and Guangdong Provincial Government. It is now home to Departments of Education, Psychology, Pre-school Education, Educational Information Technology, Art, Tourism Culture, Physical Education, Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language and Fine Arts. These departments offer undergraduate programs in Pedagogy, Applied Psychology, Pre-school Education, Educational Information Technology, Musicology, Performing Art, Tourism Culture and practice, Physical Education, Chinese language and literature and Fine Arts.
Affiliated to Normal College are one middle schools, a kindergarten, a training center co-sponsored by Shenzhen University and Queen’s University in Belfast (SZU-QUB Training Center), an applied psychology research and consulting center, a Putonghua training and testing center, the TOEFL testing center, the Provincial Continuing Education Center for primary and middle school teachers in the city of Shenzhen, and 18 teaching and research practice centers, including 5 that are accredited by Guangdong Provincial Department of Education.
Normal College aspires to enhance its undergraduate and postgraduate programs through combining teacher education and disciplinary studies. To achieve this goal, the College will see to it that future students acquire both extensive knowledge of pedagogy and a mastery of practical teaching skills, and will extend teacher education to students who major in disciplinary studies other than teaching. In addition, the College will continue to offer quality part-time education programs for primary and middle school teachers of the city of Shenzhen.
Normal College will strive to respect all rights of the students, uphold the principles of equality between the teachers and students, free exchange of ideas and opinions, individualism, and independent thinking, and create an atmosphere of harmony and an assiduous work and study ethic. Putting teaching and students first, the Normal College determines to continue to contribute to the cause of higher education of Shenzhen.
Undergraduate Programs:
Normal College has already conferred undergraduate diplomas to 3,000 students, the majority of whom are now working in schools of Shenzhen. At present, about 1069 undergraduate and 101 postgraduate students are studying with the Normal College. The Putonghua Testing Center has trained around 17,800 students and tested about 12,300. The SZU-QUB Training Center has enrolled around 520 students since 1998, of which 401 have obtained the Foundation Course Certificates and are qualified for further study in Queen's University.
Graduate Programs:
Normal College established its full-time master programs authorized by China Scholarship Council of the State Council of P.R.China in 2002. Currently it has 5 master degree programs including Curriculum and Teaching, Development and Educational Psychology, Applied Psychology, Educational Technology and Higher Education. 101 full-time graduate students are studying and doing research in those programs. In May 2007, the Normal College began to confer Master of Education degree and there are 25 students in the program now. The graduate programs are ideal platforms for free academic research and international exchanges with sufficient funds.
Research:
Research is a cornerstone of teaching in the Normal College. The Normal College enjoys abundant resources for teaching and research, which include well-equipped classrooms, laboratories, libraries, international conference rooms, and multi-million dollars’ worth of equipment and facilities. The College has undertaken 12 national research projects and 52 provincial and ministerial research projects. The College has won 6 provincial awards and 5 municipal awards for research excellence and successfully filed 8 patents. The faculty of the College has published about 980 academic papers in social sciences and humanities, and about 360 papers in science and technology. More than 70 papers are indexed by SCI, EI, and CSSCI. An additional 34 monographs have been published too.
People:
Normal College features a quality faculty of 101 teachers including 22 professors and 35 associate professors. There are 5 advisors of doctoral candidates and 29 advisors of master candidates guiding 22 doctoral candidates and 44 master candidates. 5 teachers enjoy the State Council Grant, an honor bestowed to distinguished professors in Chinese universities by the national government.
