The University of Pittsburgh is suspending a program that brought Chinese students to Pittsburgh to teach Mandarin to K-12 schools in the area.
The suspension of the program came after U.S. State Department required changes to the program, including more oversight of the instructors and how paperwork was submitted for visas. Belkys Torres, the executive director of global engagement at Pitt, said these changes stemmed from an audit conducted by the U.S. Department of State’s Office of Private Sector Exchange Program Administration (OPA) last fall.
But Torres said Pitt did not receive the OPA's list of required changes until mid-July, only a few days before the Chinese students were supposed to leave for the United States. Some of the requests, like having a co-teacher in the classroom with the interns, could not be fulfilled in time for the 2019-20 school year.
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Pittsburgh Business Times