Founded in 1954, Chongqing Normal University (hereafter as “CNU”) is one of the first higher teachers colleges after the founding of P. R. China. CNU is the first group of institutions entitled to confer bachelor’s degree and the third group to confer master’s degree approved by the State Degree Committee of China. It is appointed as the only “Chinese Language Education Center for Overseas Chinese” in west China by the Office for Overseas Chinese Affairs of the State Council, the only “National Key Vocational Teachers Training Center” of the Ministry of Education in Chongqing and the “Information Technology and Applied Distance Education Center” of the Ministry of Education, P. R. China.

After over 50 years’ development, CNU has developed into a comprehensive higher education institution with focusing on teachers’ training and harmoniously development of social science and natural science.

The university covers an area of over 220 hectares. The main campus is located at the heart of Shapingba District and is named as Garden-style Campus by Chongqing Municipal Government. The new campus is located at the University Town at Huxi, Shapingba, which has started to accommodate students from 2005 on. The university is well equipped for teaching and researching. The university library has a collection of over 1,800,000 books, 8,000 foreign and domestic periodicals and newspapers.

The university has a staff of more than 1700, among them there are over 550 professors and associate-professors, over 250 doctoral program and master program tutors, over 20 recipients of the Special Subsidy for Great Contribution of the Central Government, and over 30 well-known experts in the other fields.

At present, in the university, there are 22 colleges and departments, 45 programs for masters’ degree, among which there are 5 first level ones, 59 full time undergraduate programs. It has an enrollment of over 20,000 for full time study. So far it has formed a complete set of teacher education system with preschool education, primary school education, secondary education, higher education, further education, vocational and technical education, special education and teachers’ education for overseas Chinese.

CNU has 11 municipal level key subjects, 4 municipal level key research bases for social science research, 6 municipal level key labs, 45 research institutes. Since 2000, CNU has taken over 700 projects at various levels, published over 520 books and another 6000 academic articles, among them over 210 has been indexed by SCI, EI, or ISTP, achieved over 80 awards at national and provincial level.

A group of influential achievements have been made and teaching quality has been continually improved. The university has established 14 municipal level key courses, 6 municipal elite courses. In recent years, the university teachers have been granted 2 national level awards, over 20 first and second prizes at municipal level for excellent teaching achievements, 5 first-class awards, 20 second-class awards at provincial level. Students from CNU have been awarded 2 first prizes, 7 second prizes at national level and 40 at provincial level prizes in the competitions of mathematics and computer designs.

The university pays much attention to international exchange and cooperation and has subsequently established long term exchange and cooperative relationships with educational institutions from over 20 countries such as America, Russia, Canada, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and so on.