On October 20, 2020, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (“ICBC”) founded its “Spark School of ICBC University” in Beijing, and simultaneously in Shijiazhuang of Hebei Province, Hangzhou of Zhejiang Province, Suzhou of Jiangsu Province, and Jinyang of Sichuan Province by video link and livestreaming. ICBC signed cooperation agreements with local schools and education groups. The ceremony was attended by Yang Guozhong, Chairman of the Board of Supervisors of ICBC, Zhang Dongyan, Deputy Secretary General of the Chinese Society of Education, and Mei Feng, Deputy Secretary General of the China Youth Development Foundation.

Yang Guozhong said ICBC has actively fulfilled its social responsibilities, giving full play to the comprehensive advantages of its Group, to proactively promote financial knowledge popularization in communities and campuses and help improve the financial knowledge of primary and secondary school students.  ICBC established the Spark School of ICBC University in Beijing, Hangzhou, Suzhou, Shijiazhuang and Jinyang as the first batch of financial knowledge popularization and education bases for teenagers. More such schools will be established by stages and in groups when experience is gained, so that more teenagers can be benefited.

Heads of the Chinese Society of Education and the China Youth Development Foundation said they hoped to strengthen public welfare cooperation with the “Spark School of ICBC University” to jointly help improve Chinese people’s financial knowledge.

According to introduction, the “Spark School”, after its establishment, will give full play to the professional advantages of ICBC, develop financial knowledge learning resources for teenagers of different ages, and build a five-dimensional curriculum system covering “financial knowledge, financial theory, financial security, wealth values and wealth management”. The Spark School will integrate financial knowledge into school learning to help teenagers enhance their risk awareness, cultivate their spirit of contract, and foster their accurate views on consumption, credit and wealth management. Relying on the operating network of ICBC, the School will construct the service scene featured by “network + education”, and carry out various activities for students. It will also select business experts and volunteers to form a team of diversified lecturers to teach and mentor teenagers. At the same time, it will carry out financial, wealth and commerce education for primary and secondary schools in such designated poverty alleviation areas of ICBC as Nanjiang, Tongjiang, Wanyuan and Jinyang counties of Sichuan Province, to strengthen poverty alleviation through education and support rural revitalization.

ICBC University, as the corporate university of ICBC since its establishment in 2015, has implemented a series of training programs to share the achievements in quality education with the society and provide services to various social groups by upholding the principles of “openness, diversity, integration and mutual benefit”. The “Spark School” is another characteristic school established by ICBC University after “Macao Young Financial Talents Training Institute” and “New Star Academy”. Specifically, “Macao Young Financial Talents Training Institute” and the “New Star Academy” are mainly for college students at home and abroad, while the “Spark School” mainly serves primary and secondary school students, thus realizing full coverage of students at all stages.