Suzhou Polytechnic Institute of Agriculture was founded in 1907. It was originally named Suzhou Governmental Agricultural School. It has a history of 113 years and is known as the birthplace of modern horticulture and landscape engineering vocational education in China. For more than a century, the school has adhered to the motto of "encouraging self-improvement, cultivating trees and people", carried forward the spirit of "diligent respect to agriculture, hard work and innovation" and trained more than 80000 high-quality technical and managerial talents for agricultural system, including Zhang Shouyu, famous flower horticulturist and one of the founders of modern flower and horticulture discipline in China, Hu Changchi, famous fruit tree horticulturist and one of the pioneers in horticultural higher education, Shen Shanjiong, famous microbiologist and academician with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Yu Xingde, former Executive Vice Governor of Jiangsu Province.

The school has three campuses, namely, Xiyuan Road mian campus, Xiangcheng campus and Dongshan campus, covering a total area of more than 100 hectares. It has a total of 7 faculties, including Faculty of Horticultural Science and Technology, Faculty of Landscape Engineering, Faculty of Economics and Management, Faculty of Smart Agriculture, Faculty of Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Food Science and Technology and Faculty of International Education. The school has enrolled close to 10000 students in 38 subjects across 18 provinces in the entire country, with more than 500 teaching staff currently in service.

In recent years, the school has established the running plan of "basing itself on southern Jiangsu, serving agriculture, rural areas and farmers, focusing on characteristics and striving for first-class", and has clearly defined the characteristic development path of creating five business cards, namely, "propagating the agrarian culture of south of the Yangtze, pioneering vocational education in horticulture, inheriting Suzhou gardening techniques, leading the development of smart agriculture, and exploring the international export of agricultural talent". At the end of 2017, the school was successfully selected as a member of High-level Higher Vocational Colleges in Jiangsu Province. It won the first prize of the National Teaching Achievement Award, award of the top 50 schools on service contribution of national level, award of the top 50 schools on international influence of national level, award of outstanding contribution to skilled personnel cultivation of national level, award of advanced schools of vocational education in Jiangsu Province and the advanced schools of employment work in Jiangsu Province. The school was awarded the "Civilized Campus in Jiangsu Province" for seven consecutive times. In 2019, the school was also determined by the Ministry of Education as one of the 17 "National High-quality Higher Vocational Colleges" in Jiangsu Province, and was selected as one of the school participating in the "High-level Higher Vocational Colleges and Subjects Construction Plan with Chinese characteristics." Teachers and students have won the gold medal multiple times in the National Vocational College Teachers' Teaching Ability Competition and Student Skills Competition. On May 23, 2019, Sun Chunlan, member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee, Vice Premier of the State Council, visited our school for research and fully affirmed the school's talent cultivation work.

The school attaches great importance to employment work, entrepreneurship and further education of graduates. Choices of places of employment among graduates are concentrated in Suzhou urban area, SIP, High-tech District, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Shenzhen and so on. The employment rate of the school has maintained at a high level of more than 98%. The average monthly salary of the current graduates is more than 4000 RMB. The "Level of Recommendation of School" of graduates ranks first in agricultural vocational colleges in Jiangsu province. At the same time, the school invests more than 2 million RMB every year to subsidize students who start their own businesses. Many entrepreneurial models have emerged among graduates. Graduates can also be promoted to undergraduate colleges and universities for further study through various paths. Official data from the "Survey Report on the Employment of Graduates in Jiangsu Province in the Year 2018 shows that our school's undergraduate promotion rate is as high as 32.94%, ranking first in the province's High-level Higher Vocational Colleges.

"Seize every minute, Realize your dreams", The staff and students of SZAI look forward to your joining in us!

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