Photo: Courtesy of Shi An

As China's international Chinese learning program celebrates its 70th anniversary, the International Chinese Education Week 2021 kicked off in Beijing on Monday, with the aim of providing worldwide Chinese learners more opportunities to learn the language.

Held by the Center for Language Education and Cooperation in conjunction with the International Society for Chinese Language Teaching and Chinese Plus, the opening ceremony was held at the Beijing Language and Culture University and was attended bypresidents of universities from around the world, including Peking University, the US' Wesleyan College in Georgia, and a string of officials as well.

"We've overcome many difficulties and obstacles during the pandemic in order to hold this communication week in Beijing. Our goal is to build more platforms, through which we can cooperate to level up the Chinese education abroad and to make teaching more diverse," said Tian Xuejun, China's deputy minister of Education and director of The National Languages Committee, during the opening ceremony.

A total of 20 Chinese universities and representatives of the Chinese enterprises, as well as the audience from over 100 countries including the US, France and Afghanistan, have attended the online ceremony.

"If we take a look at the world where the COVID-19 pandemic has been affecting our lives, we can see that countries are making efforts to promote more exchanges and that the trend toward the world growing closer is still continuing."

Tian stressed the importance of continuing efforts to enhance "local and effective" Chinese teaching in foreign countries, as the country has been doing it for years to achieve more effective worldwide communication in art, culture and other fields.

The number of countries that have incorporated the Chinese language as part of their national education system has increased to over 70, compared to 60 countries in 2018, according to China's education ministry.

Meanwhile there are more than 180 countries and regions in the world carrying out Chinese language education, with more than 20 million people studying Chinese in foreign countries, and the cumulative number of people learning and using Chinese is close to 200 million, according to new figures published in 2021

"This communication week is not only a stage to showcase global Chinese teaching, but also a platform that connects China and the world like the Belt and Road Initiative," Dr Anek Laothamatas, minister of Higher Education in Thailand, said at the opening ceremony.

Global Times