A training and exchange base for teachers from the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, the first such base on the mainland, was unveiled at South China Normal University in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, on Wednesday.

The base serves as an important opportunity to continuously deepen the exchange and cooperation in education between Guangdong and Hong Kong, said Wang Binwei, Party secretary of the university.

The university will consolidate resources and facilitate services to provide a more professional and broader platform for study and development to new teachers in Hong Kong, he said.

Cooperation with the university will be enhanced to carry out more diversified and higher-quality training programs for teachers, said Christine Choi Yuk-lin, secretary for education of the Hong Kong SAR government.

Through multilevel, multi-field and multi-mode exchange and cooperation, work will be advanced on academic discipline building, experience sharing, educational research and teachers' training to facilitate the mutual learning and common development of teachers of the two places, Choi said.

Choi hoped that teachers will treasure the opportunity to study on the mainland, see for themselves the national modernization development in various aspects, enhance their affection for and sense of belonging to the country, share good stories about the country's education, strengthen their national pride and sense of responsibility for students, and lead them to proactively integrate into the country's overall development.

South China Normal University has long maintained sound cooperation and interaction with the educational sector of the Hong Kong and Macao SARs, Wang said.

Seven study tours for nearly 800 teachers from Hong Kong were arranged last year when the program was initiated. The tours included lectures by experts, school visits, thematic seminars, classes on cultural heritage, and visits to enterprises and cultural sites.

Also on Wednesday, 149 new teachers in Hong Kong, coming from secondary, primary and special schools, started a study tour at the university. Eleven more such tours are planned in the first half of this year.

The Department of Education of Guangdong and the Education Bureau of Hong Kong in August signed a framework agreement on strengthening education exchange and cooperation, said Zhu Kongjun, director of the provincial education department.

Guangdong will send more teachers from the province on study and exchange tours to Hong Kong to broaden their views and raise their professional capacity, he said.

Yang Qianhang contributed to this story.