International Students’ Football

Invitational Tournament among Normal Universities Affiliated to Ministry of Education of 2017

was held at Beijing Normal University from May 5 to 7. Six normal

universities that directly administrated by

Ministry of Education dispatched a team of ten players —Beijing Normal University(BNU), East China

Normal University(ECNU), Central China Normal University(CCNU), Northeast Normal University(NENU),

Shaanxi Normal University(SNNU) and Southwest University(SWU)—to participate

the football match.

The game was co-organized by College of P.E.

and Sports and Football Development Research Center of BNU. CHEN Lin, Director of Division of International Students Affairs of

China Scholarship Council, ZHOU Zuoyu, Vice-president of Beijing Normal University,

WANG Xiumei, Director of Office of International Exchange & Cooperation,

SUN Desheng, Deputy director of Division of International Cooperation and Exchange

of NENU as well as Heads of international students affairs department of other

universities attended the opening ceremony. 

President ZHOU delivered a keynote speech at the opening ceremony. He expressed his warm welcome

to the five peer universities and introduced the BNU international students’ educational

development situation and the football club as well. In closing, he extended his heartfelt thanks

to the teams and wished this tournament a complete success.

The tournament adopted the mode of Group Round Robin. After 8 matches, ECNU won the champion while CCNU and BNU came to

the second and third. NENU was awarded the title of Fair Play.

The tournament was initiated by BNU, ECNU

and SWU. First tournament was held by SWU in 2016 successfully. From then on, each of the six normal universities would organize the tournament in rotation. The 2017 tournament was the second in history and the first time

held by BNU. Theultimate goalof this initiative is providing a platform for international students

to communicate with each other.

A seminar with the theme of international students' affiars was also conducted during the tournament. To make progress in educating and serving international students in China, Heads of international students' affairs of each university shared their insightful ideas

about “The advantages and characteristics of normal universities in educating

international students”, “Synergetic development of normal universities

affiliated to Ministry of Education” and “The problems and challenges in educating

international students”.