The 4th Meeting of BRICS Ministers of Education was in a bid to promote education cooperation and people to people exchanges among the five countries before the upcoming BRICS Leaders' Meeting this October.

It is an important BRICS meeting after the informal meeting among BRICS leaders during the 11th G20 Summit held in Hangzhou this September.

The meeting gathered delegations from the BRICS members, namely Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa.

In his speech, Hao Ping, China's Vice Education Minister Hao Ping said China faces three major challenges in educational development and reform.

Firstly, China is now running the largest education system in the world, which demands constant and huge investment. Secondly, considerable disparity still exists in education development, which requires further efforts to promote education equity. Thirdly, improving education quality is one of the top priorities in China's 13th 5-year education plan.

Hao Ping also proposed three suggestions to further enhance education cooperation among BRICS countries, including promoting more cooperation among BRICS universities, encouraging more joint research and teaching, and providing supporting policies and services to facilitate student and faculty mobility.

His proposals were highly acclaimed by other delegates, and were included in the New Delhi Declaration on Education, which was signed by the participating ministers during the meeting.

The declaration emphasized issues of common interest, including promoting equal and accessible education through strengthening international cooperation, and advocates more cooperation in Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET), quality assurance, life-long learning, knowledge transfer and student and faculty exchanges, which is in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 2030 of the UN.

(Xinhua News Agency September 30, 2016)