Chinese President Xi Jinping attended the 26th Meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) on September 1 in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan. He announced in a speech that China will establish the China–SCO Basic Education Cooperation Center, a major outcome of this meeting.

The center will provide a new platform for education cooperation among SCO members and deepen China’s participation in global education governance. It will leverage the strengths of Beijing as a hub for international exchanges as well as the city’s strong basic education resources and high-quality education system to advance reforms and innovation in basic education and promote people-to-people exchanges across SCO countries. The center’s work will focus on youth exchange, teacher development, AI-enabled basic education, education policy research, and think tank cooperation.

The center will be inaugurated on September 10, alongside an initial set of key programs, at the opening ceremony of the specialized exhibition on education services at the China International Fair for Trade in Services in Beijing.