Rossmoyne teachers off to China

Two Rossmoyne teachers have travelled to China to help adjudicate in a Western Australian essay competition that has attracted 250,000 Chinese high school students.

The competition was run by the Department of State Development to raise awareness of Western Australia among the young people of Zhejiang Province.

Zhejiang Province has been WA's Sister State since 1987.

English teacher Natasha Saunders and languages teacher Bee Yip were flown to China this week as guests of the Zhejiang People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries.

Their involvement in the essay competition was organised as part of Education Minister Liz Constable's visit to China this week.

Dr Constable is leading a delegation of Vice-Chancellors from four Perth universities to China to promote Perth as a place for high-quality higher education.

The Minister will attend the final judging of the essay competition tomorrow morning in Hangzhou, where she will meet the two Perth teachers.

Dr Constable said it was important to build links with Chinese schools.

"I believe the WA higher education system has a greater capacity to increase university enrolments from overseas in the next few years than most other States," she said.

"To achieve this it is also important to forge links with schools, some of whom are already teaching the WA senior school curriculum, to increase awareness of our State and what we have to offer.

"It helps enormously in this process to have outstanding teachers such as Natasha and Bee here to act as ambassadors for our public school system."

As members of the judging panel, the teachers would select 25 winners to visit WA later this year, funded by the State Government and the Government of Zhejiang.

Rossmoyne Senior High School principal Terry Sanbrook said the selection of two teachers to visit China was testament to the quality of the English and Language programs offered at the school.

"It's a great honour for this school to be asked to send teachers to China," Mr Sanbrook said.

"I hope that from this visit, close ties can be developed between our school and those in Zhejiang that will result in inter-school relationships and possibly reciprocal visits for many years to come."