Fast and Steady High-quality Development of the New Higher Education Group Delivers New Achievements Continuously with High-quality and Precision Investments

 

BUSINESS HIGHLIGHTS

 

• The Group adheres to the concept of “Student-oriented” and continuously increases high-quality and precise investments, delivering fruitful achievements in high quality teaching, high quality employment and high quality students and teachers’ experience, and its high-quality development strategy has been steadily advanced.
• The education and teaching level has been improved in all respects, students have won numerous awards and made further successes ; fruitful achievements have been made in majors and courses construction and seven new provincial-level first-class majors have been added in the four undergraduate schools. The level of employment has continued to improve with the initial employment rate reaching 89% as of 31 August 2022, higher than the average of the nationwide level, and 187% y-o-y increase in the high-quality employment rate.
• The Group always adheres to the development orientation of “Building a high-level application-oriented college and vocational university”, deepens the integration of industry and education, school-enterprise cooperation, cultivates application-oriented talents who can meet the needs of industry and occupation development and have the ability of industry growth and career development potential, providing stronger talent support for coordinated regional development.
• The high-quality development strategy which the Group has put forward and implemented is highly consistent with the educational policy of the Party and the country.
• With firm step in high-quality development, the performance showed stable growth: 24.6% and 16.4% y-o-y increase was recorded in the total revenue and the adjusted net profit attributable to owners of the parent, respectively.

 

 (29 November 2022 –Hong Kong) A leading higher vocational education group – China New Higher Education Group Limited (“New Higher Education Group”, together with its subsidiaries, collectively referred to as the “Group”, stock code: 2001.HK) is pleased to announce the annual results for the year ended 31 August 2022.

 

New Higher Education Group has been focusing on the higher vocational education for 23 years, always adhering to the education philosophy of “Student-oriented” and the education vision of “To Nurture the Growth of Our Students and Help Students to Realize Their Dreams”, unswervingly taking the road of high-quality development, making precise investments in teaching, employment and school life that the students and teachers are most concerned about, its talent cultivation capability has been improved in all respects, school operation strength has been significantly enhanced, and the experience of students and teachers has been greatly improved. On this basis, the Group has achieved steady growth in results and all its intended targets have been achieved in a high-quality manner.

 

“Student-oriented” with High-Quality And Precise Investments

 

The Group adheres to the concept of ” Student-oriented “, continues to implement the high-quality development strategy, attaches great importance to the students and teachers’ experience, and continues to increase investment in teaching, employment and school life that the students and teachers are highly concerned about in order to lay the foundation for the Group’s development in a higher-quality and more sustainable manner.

 

• Increasing precise investment in teaching. The investment in teacher costs has increased by 40.5% y-o-y and the number of teachers with high academic qualifications and professional titles has increased by 31% y-o-y, more than 550 double qualification teachers have been introduced and cultivated, over 500 times of internal and external trainings have been organized, with remarkable achievements in building up high-quality faculty team. The Group has increased the investment in cloud teaching platform, realized real-time monitor of the teaching process and fully upgraded the function of teaching diary, to ensure that the quality of teaching and learning has been enhanced. The investment in the construction of advantageous majors has increased by 69.1% y-o-y. The Group and Snow Laboratory of Harvard Graduate School of Education have jointly built seven international-level pre-school education courses, realizing the sharing of online and offline educational resources; the Group and Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University have jointly built advantageous majors of accounting and computer science and technology, supporting high-quality development strategies from the aspects of education objectives and employee empowerment, etc.. The Group has a dedicated teaching quality assurance organization, and carried out professional quality evaluation, course quality evaluation, classroom teaching and learning quality evaluation and employment quality evaluation, to assess the teaching quality.
• Increasing precise investment in employment. Employment-related investment has increased by 48% y-o-y. This year, in the face of the impact of the Covid-19 coupled with severe employment situation this year, the Group has joined hands with the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League, Zhaopin（智聯招聘）, Shixiseng（實習僧）and other platforms to provide more than 310,000 jobs for our graduates; invited experts to provide guidance on career to all graduates of the Group’s schools for 51 times, with an average number of times graduates participated in career guidance activities of approximately 3.2 times/person, so as to continuously improve students’ competitiveness and employment quality.
• Increasing precise investment in school life. In this academic year, the Group added nearly RMB235 million to continuously renovate and upgrade the experimental training rooms, smart classrooms, self-study spaces for students, etc., and continue to renovate the education environment such as student apartments accommodation, canteens, courts, etc., to create a beautiful campus and comprehensively improve the visual experience, and at the same time to increase the speed of campus network, achieve full coverage of campus signals, and continuously improve the living environment for students.

 

High-Quality Development Delivered New Achievements Continuously, And The Sustainable Development Capacity Has Been Further Enhanced

 

Driven by precise investment in high-quality development, the Group has made remarkable achievements in high-quality development and its education and teaching level has been continuously enhanced; tightly rooted in the sunrise industries, the Group pursues high-quality employment; and services and education have penetrated all aspects. The satisfaction of students and teachers has been improved significantly; the brand effect has become increasingly prominent; the results have been growing in a steady manner; and high-quality development strategy has been steadily implemented.

 

Significant enhancement has been achieved in education and teaching level: The Group’s schools added seven provincial first-class majors and three provincial first-class courses and excellent courses. The majors, including welding technology and engineering, automobile service engineering, transportation, communication engineering, electrical engineering and automation, have been rated as 2022 top application-oriented majors in China. The students of the Group’s schools have won 22 national top awards in 56 top comprehensive discipline competitions, hitting a record high and the talent training level of the Group has been further improved. The teachers of the Group’s schools have won 4 teaching achievement awards of provincial-level or above, and their teaching capability has been continuously improved.

 

Continuous upgrading has been made in the integration of industry and education: The Group has built 45 high-quality industrial colleges, up 32.3% y-o-y, and newly added 5 Global 500 industrial colleges. The Group has cooperated with research institutes for the first time in the construction of industrial colleges and jointly built Harbin Welding Institute Industrial College with Harbin Welding Institute that ranks the second in the world, realizing the whole process joint cultivation from the fresh year to the senior year; cooperated with Industry Research Institute of Zhejiang Geely Automobile, a Fortune Global 500 company, realized joint cultivation of automobile majors. The Group has opened 167 famous enterprise employment classes, built 842 on-campus and off-campus experimental training bases, closely connected with the sunrise industries and vigorously promoted the integration of industry and education, cultivating application-oriented talents who can meet the needs of industry and occupation development and have the capability of industry growth and career development potential.

 

High-quality employment is tightly rooted in the sunrise industries: The final employment rate as of 31 December 2021 reached 98%, and the employment rate had been 98% for two consecutive years. All schools of the Group received top ranking in terms of employment rate in their respective provinces. The initial employment rate as of 31 August 2022 reached 89%, much higher than the national average. The Group has continued its emphasis on quality employment. The number of graduates employed in sunrise industries increased by 45% year-on-year. The high-quality employment rate increased by 187% y-o-y, 23% of the high-quality employment was in famous companies such as Huawei, SF Express and Tesla, which are among the top 500 companies in the world, the top 100 companies in China and A-shares listed companies.

 

Students and teachers’ experience work has been carried out throughout the year: In 2022, the Group has made “enhance the overall students and teachers’ experience” the main line of our effort throughout the year, established a students and teachers’ experience department, and carried out solid and meticulous work on the areas of high concern for students and teachers. The schools of the Group launched the “I do something practical for students and teachers” campaign, established the “Student Experience Committee”, organized the “Principal’s Reception Day”, achieved 80 great things and implemented 227 student opinions. The students and teachers’ satisfaction level continues to increase, which was highly evaluated by the  higher authorities. Our Gansu School actively practiced “doing practical things for the public” and paid close attention to the students and teachers’ experience, which was commended by the Department of Education.

 

The brand effect of our schools has been increasingly prominent: The brand effect of our schools continues to develop. For example the employment work of the Guizhou School was praised by Minister Huai Jinpeng (懷進鵬), and the graduates were evaluated as typical of university students’ employment and entrepreneurship by the Ministry of Education; the Central China School won many awards in the 8th National BIM Graduation Design Innovation Competition, with 100% of the participating teams winning awards; the Luoyang School was selected as the first batch of pilot schools for the Sino-German Advanced Vocational Education Cooperation Project by the Ministry of Education, and is the only private school in China to be selected; the Northeast School was awarded “Excellent Cooperation Unit of 2021” by the world’s top 500 enterprises, etc.

 

The High-Quality Development Orientation of the Group is Highly Consistent with the Educational Policy of the Party and the Country

 

General Secretary Xi Jinping clearly pointed out in his report at the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China that “The construction of a high-quality education system should be accelerated” and the high-quality development strategy which the Group has put forward and is practicing is highly consistent with the educational policy of the Party and the Country. In the report of the 20th CPC National Congress, some key words were pointed out, such as “insisting on the priority development of education”, “accelerating the construction of an education power”, “accelerating the construction of a high-quality education system”, “providing education that satisfies the people”, and “implement the strategy of giving priority to employment”. The Group will always adhere to the strategy of high-quality development, insist on internal construction, take “helping every student to get a high-quality job” as its long-term strategic goal, and strengthen the construction of employment team, so as to contribute to the high-quality development of higher vocational education.

 

To Enhance the Attributes of a Top-Performing Public Utility Stock and Unswervingly Persevere in the “Three Sustainabilitie”

 

The Group has the attributes of a top-performing public utility stock in the Hong Kong stock market: stable performance growth, solid investment returns, sufficient cash flow, high safety margin (Forward PE: 5.26 times, data source: Bloomberg) and steady dividend payout (it has distributed cash dividend every year since listing, and the dividend payout ratio of the recent three times has reached 50%).

 

Looking forward to the future, the Group will practically persevere in the “three sustainabilities” : continuing to follow the path of high-quality development and focus on organic development, to create and provide high-quality vocational education opportunities with high-quality teaching, high-quality employment and high-quality experience for all our students; strengthen the attributes of a top-performing public utilities stock in the Hong Kong stock market. In the future, the Group will continue to be a government-supported, long-term sustainable higher vocational education group with high quality development, to achieve long-term win-win situation with investors by providing a predictable, long-term and stable performance growth; continuing to adhere to the concept of “Student-oriented” and the fundamental task of enhancing morality and fostering talents and deliver high-quality technical and skilled talents with innovative spirit and practical capability, trustworthy and social responsibility for the society, create greater value for the society and provide education that satisfies the people.

 

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About China New Higher Education Group Limited

 

New Higher Education Group is a leading higher vocational education group in China with more than 20 years of higher vocational education experience. The Group focuses on providing high-quality higher vocational education in various fields and is committed to cultivating application-oriented and high-quality technical skill talents for the country, helping students gain high-level employability and achieve a wonderful life. As a leader in high-quality employment, the Group has won the title of the Top 50 National Employment awarded by the MOE with an average employment rate of approximately 98%, much higher than the national average. The Group’s network of schools has covered Yunnan, Heilongjiang, Hubei, Gansu, Guizhou, Henan and Guangxi provinces.

 

The Group has become a constituent stock of the Hang Seng Composite Small Cap Index and the Hang Seng Consumer Goods & Services Index in the Hang Seng Composite Index Series in August 2017, and has been included as a constituent stock of the MSCI China Small Cap Index in November 2017 and included as a constituent stock of Shenzhen and Hong Kong Stock Connect in March 2018.