Introduction

This paper reports on a Chinese-Australian higher education initiative that has been designed to allow early childhood pre-service teachers from China the opportunity to study for two years in each country and gain a dual teaching qualification. The background to the project is twofold as the two countries had different motives for entering the partnership described here and therefore expected outcomes have differed. For the Australian university the driving force has been the international student market and the opportunity to generate income (Access Economics，2009) .The Chinese university，the initiator of the proposal，was the proposing partner as the initiative reflected current Chinese early childhood education policy and was supported through major projects such as Project 211 (Fang，2012) which aimed to enhance China's own higher education services as well as develop ing partnerships with overseas universities to expand knowledge and skills available. International partnerships such as the degree arrangement described here are becoming an increasingly common activity in the world of global education (Knight，2008) .There are economic，political，social and cultural advantages to such exchanges as well as challenges.

Evaluation is an important part of any enterprise and this paper is the first part of a research venture to explore how this partnership was developed，how the original aims have been realizedand what is the potential for sustainability and further growth? The partnership is now well into the first phase of delivering dual qualified early childhood teachers with the first cohort having completed their studies. Academics from Australia have delivered six courses into the undergraduate degree program in China with further courses to be taught on an on-going basis.There has been no development in relation to joint research. Starting from the beginning we revisit the original premise for the project from the viewpoint of the importing partner. Participating academics in the Chinese institution have been interviewed about their knowledge，role and expectations for the partnership and in part 1 of this chapter we examine the interviews of the three leading academics who were major initiators of the scheme. In part 11 the perspective of the leading academics involved in the initiative is discussed. The main questions asked were：How was this project developed and；what is the long-term potential for capacity building from this initiative?(https://www.daowen.com)

We therefore present a review of the relevant literature，a description of the context for this stage of the research and details of the project. Research data consists of relevant documents，the research literature and interview transcriptions. Discussion centres on capacity building in relation to perceived benefits，implementation challenges and the future of the project.