Suzhou Polytechnic Institute of Agriculture (SPIA) (simplified Chinese: 苏州农业职业技术学院; traditional Chinese: 蘇州農業職業技術學院) is a provincial public

vocational college A university of applied sciences (UAS), nowadays much less commonly called a polytechnic university or vocational university, is an institution of higher education and sometimes research that provides vocational education and grants academic de ...

Suzhou Suzhou (; ; Suzhounese: ''sou¹ tseu¹'' , Mandarin: ), alternately romanized as Soochow, is a major city in southern Jiangsu province, East China. Suzhou is the largest city in Jiangsu, and a major economic center and focal point of trad ...

, China. SPIA was originally the Suzhou Government Agricultural School, founded in 1907 (the 33rd year of

Guangxu The Guangxu Emperor (14 August 1871 – 14 November 1908), personal name Zaitian, was the tenth Emperor of the Qing dynasty, and the ninth Qing emperor to rule over China proper. His reign lasted from 1875 to 1908, but in practice he ruled, wi ...

's reign of the

Qing Dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speak ...

History

In 2001, the school was upgraded to a vocational institution of higher learning and hence got its current name. In 2008, SPIA was approved to enter the list of "Demonstrative Higher Vocational Institutions of

Jiangsu Province Jiangsu (; ; pinyin: Jiāngsū, alternatively romanized as Kiangsu or Chiangsu) is an eastern coastal province of the People's Republic of China. It is one of the leading provinces in finance, education, technology, and tourism, with its c ...

" under-construction. The SPIA campus includes the Demonstrative Training Base for Rural Labor Shift under the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development, and the Suzhou Training Center under the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture. According to the ''National Chronicle of Horticulture,'' SPIA's

horticulture Horticulture is the branch of agriculture that deals with the art, science, technology, and business of plant cultivation. It includes the cultivation of fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, herbs, sprouts, mushrooms, algae, flowers, seaweeds and no ...

education dates back to 1912, being the earliest to offer this program among its counterparts in China. SPIA is the forerunner of

vocational education Vocational education is education that prepares people to work as a technician or to take up employment in a skilled craft or trade as a tradesperson or artisan. Vocational Education can also be seen as that type of education given to an i ...

in horticulture and gardening in modern China. In 2017, SPIA was approved to be listed as one of the High-level Vocational colleges in

Jiangsu Jiangsu (; ; pinyin: Jiāngsū, alternatively romanized as Kiangsu or Chiangsu) is an eastern coastal province of the People's Republic of China. It is one of the leading provinces in finance, education, technology, and tourism, with it ...

Province.

Infrastructure

SPIA consists of the Main Campus, Xiangcheng Campus and Dongshan Campus, covering a total area of over 100 hectares. There are currently 35 diploma programs offered by the 9 teaching units, i.e. School of Horticultural Technology, School of

Landscape Engineering Landscape engineering is the application of mathematics and science to shape land and waterscapes. It can also be described as green engineering, but the design professionals best known for landscape engineering are landscape architects. Landscape e ...

, School of Economics & Management, School of

Environmental Engineering Environmental engineering is a professional engineering discipline that encompasses broad scientific topics like chemistry, biology, ecology, geology, hydraulics, hydrology, microbiology, and mathematics to create solutions that will protect and ...

, School of Smart Agriculture, School of

Food Science Food science is the basic science and applied science of food; its scope starts at overlap with agricultural science and nutritional science and leads through the scientific aspects of food safety and food processing, informing the development ...

and Technology, School of International Education, School of

Continuing Education Continuing education (similar to further education in the United Kingdom and Ireland) is an all-encompassing term within a broad list of post-secondary learning activities and programs. The term is used mainly in the United States and Canada. ...

, and Center for Quality Education.

Academics

SPIA Students are from 17 provinces, with a total of nearly 10,000 full-time students on campus. SPIA has over 550 faculty and staff members, including 191 with senior professional titles, 292 with master's or doctorate degrees, and more than 60 ranked as highly qualified personnel at the provincial or state levels. SPIA has 2 "Provincial Excellent Teaching Teams", 6 "Provincial Brand-name Majors or Featured Majors", one "National Quality Course", 9 "Provincial Quality Courses", and one "National Quality Course Book" and 12 "Provincial Quality Course Books" . International exchanges and cooperation have been heartily carried out between SPIA and 18 sister schools from 8 countries.

References

External links

* {{authority control Educational institutions established in 1907 Universities and colleges in Suzhou 1907 establishments in China