2017 Joint Conference of Confucius Institutes in Africa Held in Zambia

On May 18th, the 2017 Joint Conference of Confucius Institutes in Africa was held in Lusaka, Zambia. Over 240 guests attended the conference, including Chinese and foreign directors of 48 Confucius Institutes and 6 Confucius Classrooms from 35 African countries, and representatives of 20 Chinese and African enterprises and institutions, making the conference scale the largest in history. Yang Youming, Chinese Ambassador to Zambia, Dennis Musuku Wanchinga, Minister of General Education of Zambia, Peggy Chirwa, Deputy Permanent Secretary at Ministry of Higher Education of Zambia, Luke Evuta Mumba, Vice Chancellor of the University of Zambia (UNZA), Xia Jianhui, Deputy Chief Executive of the Confucius Institute Headquarters and Deputy Director General of Hanban, Wu Yiqing, Vice President of Hebei University of Economics and Business, and others attended and addressed the opening ceremony. Enala T. Mwase, Deputy Vice Chancellor of the UNZA, presided over the ceremony.

Ambassador Yang Youming said that, Confucius Institutes has achieved leapfrog development in the world and has become a star performer in cross-culture exchanges between China and other countries. Following the general trend of friendship between China and Zambia, the Confucius Institute at University of Zambia vigorously promotes Chinese language teaching and Chinese culture, making remarkable achievements. He added that the Confucius Institute is expected to better satisfy local differentiated demands, to focus on the pragmatic application of language and culture, and to continue advancing the friendship and practical cooperation between the two countries.

Yang Youming, Chinese Ambassador to Zambia addressing the conference

Vice Chancellor Luke Evuta Mumba pointed out that there are great demands for language and cultural exchanges between China and Zambia. Since the establishment of the Confucius Institute at the UNZA, it has become a crucial platform for Chinese language teaching, student exchanges, and educational cooperation, and has made remarkable contributions to cooperation projects. For example, the Confucius Institute has successfully promoted the Ministry of General Education of Zambia to list Chinese language into the mainstream education system of elementary and secondary schools, and to formulate a Chinese-teaching syllabus for elementary and secondary schools; it has also advanced the two countries to cooperate to implement the "2 plus 2" training program for local teachers. The UNZA will continue to support the development of the institute.

Luke Evuta Mumba, Vice Chancellor of UNZA addressing the conference

Minister of General Education of Zambia Wanchinga, read out the speech of Vice President Inonge Wina, stressing that China is an all-weather friend of Africa and Zambian people would never forget the fact that China is not rich, but it resolutely helped to build the Tanzania-Zambia railway, marking a new start of exchanges and cooperation between China and Africa. Two years ago, at the China-Africa Cooperation Forum, President Xi Jinping promised to continue to increase investment in Africa and deepen the all-round cooperative relations between China and Africa. The Confucius Institute has become the representative of cultural diversity, and a key to exchanges and cooperation between China and other countries. The Zambian government promises to support Chinese language in serving as one of three statutory languages of instruction in Zambian schools, and to expand the scale of Chinese teaching. The government also hopes that the institute can increase training and courses on vocational skills so as to make it become a platform and bond for mutual benefit and win-win result between the two countries.

Minister of General Education of Zambia Wanchinga addressing the conference

Peggy Chirwa read out the speech of Minister of Higher Education of Zambia Nkandu Luo, saying that the UNZA serves as the center for learning, innovation and reform of Zambia. The Confucius Institute at the UNZA has been acting an important role in promoting educational and cultural exchanges between China and Zambia, and has created more opportunities for cooperation in various fields between the two countries. There are over 100 Zambian students who have studied in China. Most of them now serve as Chinese language teachers in elementary and secondary schools after they went home. However, with the incorporation of Chinese language into Zambian education system, the existing Chinese language teachers can never meet the great demands. The two countries are expected to further increase investments in training Chinese language teachers.

Peggy Chirwa, Deputy Permanent Secretary of Ministry of Higher Education of Zambia addressing the conference

Xia Jianhui stressed that the Confucius Institute expands Chinese language teaching across the world and shoulders its responsibility of promoting cultural exchanges, aiming to lay a solid foundation for the bonds between Chinese and people around the world. China and Africa are forever friends, partners and brothers. The Confucius Institutes in Africa have good performance in its teaching orientation, development, study and applications, helping the Confucius Institutes in Africa achieve the most satisfying results around the world. Now, China-Africa relations featuring all-round cooperation and common development have entered a new stage. As the Confucius Institutes in Africa are facing unprecedented development opportunities, the Confucius Institute Headquarters will, under the principles of "developing with African characteristics to meet demands in line with local conditions", offer special policy and support to constantly improve the quality and standard of the Confucius Institutes, and make more contributions to promoting educational and cultural exchanges as well as economic and trade pragmatic cooperation between China and Africa, and advance the "Belt and Road" development.

Deputy Director General of Hanban Xia Jianhui addressing the conference

During the opening ceremony, students of the Confucius Institute at the UNZA gave a splendid cultural performance, including local dance "Chan Da", Chinese folk song "The Orchid Grass", poetry recitation of "A Tranquil Night" and other Tang and Song poems, cucurbit flute ensemble of "Oath of Marriage", and martial arts performance "Chinese Kungfu", winning constant applause from the audience.

Local dance performance

Students' martial arts performance

Group photo of all representatives

The two-day conference included three topics, "local teacher training", "vocational and technical training", and "Cooperation with Chinese-funded enterprises". The conference would arrange a theme plenary meeting and three group seminars, and invite Prof. Liu Hongwu, Director of Institute of African Studies at Zhejiang Normal University, and Gao Shuzhong, Vice President of Shandong University of Traditional Chinese Medicine to give keynote speeches on cultural exchanges and traditional Chinese medicine. In addition, an exhibit of the achievements of Confucius Institutes (classroom) in Africa was held during the conference as well.