Students blazing a trail for Belt and Road future

Young Africans settle into classes at Ningbo Polytechnic College to learn skills that could help improve their countries' prospects.

As Ningbo Polytechnic College spearheads the Belt and Road Alliance for Industry and Education Collaboration - officially launched on June 9 - it is already putting its words into practice.

An hour's drive from downtown takes you to Ningbo Economy and Technology Development Zone, near Beilun Seaport, where the college sits on 20 hectares of land. Foreign students have already been integrated into the community to pursue technical courses under the Chinese government scholarship program.

From left: Lilian Lumayo, Paul Kome, Elizabeth Andia and Beril Imali. The four joined Ningbo Polytechnic College two years ago to pursue technical courses under a scholarship program. Lucie Morangi / China Daily

There are about 100 students from sub-Saharan Africa studying there. Ningbo college has departments such as Foreign Language, Commerce and Business, Technology and Information. Four young people from Kenya arrived two years ago and have just completed the language competency classes that will ease them into their selected regular programs in September.

As they recall their journey to China, their stories follow a script that could have been written by the same author. After excelling in their final national exams, they were unable to join institutes of higher learning due to prohibitive tuition fees.

All of them, under age 25, turned to the government and applied for funds through the bursary program at the local government's education department. But due to the sheer number of applications, they were only able to get partial funding.