The Chinese University of Hong Kong's medical school is extending its reach to the mainland.
University officials are laying plans to help train doctors at Shenzhen University's three-year-old medical school. From next year, the university will admit 10 medical students annually from Shantou University to study for a year at its medical faculty.
It is an ongoing integration. Already, about half the postgraduate medical students at the university are from the mainland.
That integration will increase in the next five years. At this year's Guangdong provincial People's Congress meeting, officials announced a series of co-operative ventures in higher education involving Hong Kong and coastal cities. The ventures are listed in Guangdong's 12th five-year plan as initiatives to strengthen co-operation with Hong Kong.
The deputy director of the provincial Educational Department, Wei Zhonglin , said discussions were progressing smoothly on plans for at least four Hong Kong universities to establish branches in Guangdong.
Professor Joseph Sung Jao-yiu, vice-chancellor of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, confirmed that Shenzhen University's medical school had invited the medical faculty to co-operate in various ways. 'It's at the very preliminary stage,' Sung said. 'We have to study it further.'