On February 20, hosted by Wu Chunmei, President of Hefei University, the unveiling ceremony of the Volkswagen College was held in Hefei Sino-German Cooperation and Innovation Zone, aiming to promote the in-depth industry-education integration, school-enterprise collaborative education, and create a dual-system model of higher education cooperation. Jens Pfitzinger, Executive Vice President of Volkswagen Group (China), and Erwin Gabardi, CEO of Volkswagen (Anhui) Co., Ltd. attended the ceremony and delivered speeches.
Jens Pfitzinger said, Volkswagen Group, facing the digital transformation with talents as the key, is always working actively to promote the development of applied higher education, and cultivate talents for its new forces reserve. He hopes that Volkswagen College students can do well in their expertise, apply what is learned into practice, and become the pioneers of China's automobile industry in the future.
Erwin Gabardi said, Volkswagen College, jointly established by Volkswagen, Hefei government and Hefei University, aims at cultivating applied talents in the automobile industry with the dual-system training mode, which will bring more high-quality talents for Volkswagen(Anhui) and the development of Anhui province and Hefei city in particular.
Wang Qidong, Chair of HFU Council remarked, Hefei University plays an active role in pushing the integrated development of industry, education and the local city; it has explored and improved the “three-in-one” talent training mode, namely, specialty, employment and industry integrated as a whole, which is to realize the goal of training engineers right in the local city; HFU has also found a new way for applied universities to improve their talent quality to serve the development of local industries.
This ceremony opened a brand-new chapter of “tripartite cooperation” between the government, university and enterprise. Volkswagen College will develop into a new modern industrial college integrating such functions as talent training, scientific research, technological innovation, enterprise service, collaborative education, evaluation and certification, teacher training, student entrepreneurship, and explore the “three-in-one” integrated development.
The establishment of Volkswagen College has gone through several phases. On July 16, 2021, Hefei University, Volkswagen Group and Hefei Economic and Technological Development Zone signed the “Letter of Intent to Jointly Build Volkswagen College in Hefei University”, which was to build a modern industry college for future automobile technology and mobile industry. In July 2022, the first batch of Volkswagen College students graduated successfully and joined in Volkswagen (Anhui)Co., Ltd. after passing the entrance examination, who then become “Seed Engineers” of its new-energy vehicle project. In September 2022, Volkswagen Group and Hefei University selected 88 HFU freshmen from three specialties for joint training: Intelligent Manufacturing Engineering, Data Science and Big Data Technology, and Inorganic Non-metallic Material Battery Technology Engineering. In December 2022, with the support of Hefei government, Volkswagen College settled in Hefei Sino-German Cooperation and Innovation Zone.
