School of Continuing Education Hong Kong Baptist University is excited to share with their donors that the Nanjing Cultural Tour was successfully held from 22 to 26 June 2014 with the support of donation and the matching-grant sponsorship from the Mainland Experience Scheme for Post-Secondary Students launched by the Hong Kong government.  This tour provided students a better understanding of early childhood education in the Mainland China through the social, economic and cultural perspectives.

A total of 13 students from their Bachelor of Education (Honours) in Early Childhood Education programme  had participated in this tour. Students learned through both academic and cultural experiences.  In the mornings, students attended a seminar and a study visit at Nanjing Normal University which is famous for its early childhood education programmes. They also visited two national kindergartens – Nanjing Experimental Kindergarten and Wuxi Experimental Kindergarten.  During the afternoon sessions, students visited some of the distinctive cultural spots, e.g. Dr Sun Yat-sen's Mausoleum (中山陵), The Confucian Temple (夫子廟), The Nanjing Massacre Museum (南京大屠 殺紀念館) and Xuanwu Lake (玄武湖), etc. 

Students are grouped in 4 teams to carry out their assigned tasks. They did field notes, photo records and documentation for preparing their presentations in the Professional Enrichment Seminar in October 2014 to share their experiences from the cultural and academic perspectives with other classmates.

Students strongly agreed that this cultural tour provided them with an enriching learning experience and they were satisfied with the overall arrangement of the tour. Other than that, they had produced a 3-minute video to promote this Scheme among their junior classmates. The followings are their reflections:

Wuxi Experimental Kindergarten

“There was a wide variety of teaching approaches used in the kindergarten, such as experiential learning, mixed thematic and academic subject approaches. Also, teachers respected children’s ideas since the classroom environment and settings shown how they involved children’s thinking and creativity.”

The Nanjing Massacre Museum

“This Museum impressed me most from the cultural perspective. This was a very hard time to Nanjing. The Museum provided much background information about this history to show the slaughter of a war. I hope the dead and their family could find peace and overcome this nightmare. The Museum could remind everyone the importance of peace.”

The Confucian Temple

“The Temple impressed me most because I don’t think other countries would celebrate a great philosopher as what we did in China. I saw so many wishes from our Chinese students hanging on the trees there which showed their pursuit of academic excellence.”

Xuanwu Lake

“The Xuanwu Lake impressed me so much as the lake view there was so beautiful and we had a ride there on a boat to appreciate the scenery and architecture.”