BEIJING - The Ministry of Education signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with six local governments Tuesday to promote international education cooperation on the Belt and Road Initiative.

They include Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, the provinces of Jilin, Heilongjiang, Shaanxi and Qinghai, as well as the city of Qingdao.

Education cooperation for the initiative is part of China's 13th Five Year Plan from 2016 to 2020. The ministry has already signed similar agreements with eight other provinces and autonomous regions.

The plan aims to establish education cooperation platforms for the initiative at provincial level and train urgently-needed professionals in related fields.

Tian Xuejun, vice education minister, said the ministry had inked hundreds of projects on education cooperation with local governments, and would provide support for foreign students exchanges, Sino-foreign cooperative education, regional studies and people-to-people exchanges.