Lingsheng Group leadership pays return visit to KFU
Lenar Safin, Rector of Kazan Federal University, met with the leadership of Lingsheng, China’s largest construction holding company.
The visit to KFU by the corporation’s CEO, Zhang Naiming, followed an earlier meeting in China and reaffirmed the parties’ agreements to advance Russian–Chinese cooperation in research and education.
International education is one of Lingsheng’s priority areas. The corporation works with universities to implement ready-made smart classroom and modular school projects.
During its first meeting with the Rector of Kazan University, the Chinese side proposed establishing a joint private international upper secondary school in Shandong Province.
The discussions have now moved to a more practical stage, with specific steps outlined for implementing the project. The school, intended for students in grades 10–11, is planned for the city of Dongying and will deliver educational programs through a partnership-based model. Zhang Naiming emphasised that the holding company would assume responsibility for all matters relating to investment, overall management, and liaison with the Chinese authorities.
Lenar Safin, in turn, confirmed the university’s readiness to integrate Russian upper secondary curricula, provide methodological support, and assign university faculty to teach at the school.
“This project certainly presents a new challenge for us. We will be among the first to open not just a branch abroad, but an entire school that will prepare students for admission to Russian universities, including Kazan University. KFU, for its part, will ensure comprehensive quality assurance at every stage of instruction, preparing students to take Russia’s Unified State Examination and obtain a Russian secondary school leaving certificate,” the Rector said.
Under Chinese law, the proposed international class must be officially registered with the Shandong Provincial Department of Education and higher-level Chinese education authorities. The parties therefore decided to prepare a formal request from Kazan University to the Embassy of the Russian Federation in Beijing to secure the project’s legal status and enable its full-scale expansion.
The parties also discussed establishing an official KFU preparatory center in China to deliver pre-university programmes for Chinese citizens.
The center will provide students with intensive instruction in Russian and relevant academic subjects to prepare them for subsequent admission to KFU bachelor’s degree programs. Instruction is expected to follow the university’s approved jointly delivered general education programs, combining in-person modules in China with distance learning technologies.
At the conclusion of their visit, the Chinese delegation toured KFU’s Preparatory Faculty for International Students at 12 Isayeva Street and 25 Kremlyovskaya Street, accompanied by Dean Airat Mukhametov and Deputy Dean Rauf Sabirov. The guests also had an opportunity to assess the capabilities of the university’s school-level educational institutions during a visit to KFU’s IT Lyceum (Boarding School), where they were welcomed by Director Almaz Shakirzyanov.
The corporation’s representatives praised the standard of education and the well-equipped, modern learning environment provided for university and school students.