In order to further the cultural and educational exchange between China and the UK, as well as to promote the sustainable development of Confucius Institutes, on October 22, 2015, CUPL President Huang Jin was invited to attend the annual conference of UK Confucius Institutes and Classrooms in London. At the event, President Xi Jinping delivered a keynote speech, and then together with the Duke of York Prince Andrew unveiled a plaque for the 1000th Confucius Classroom (the Confucius Classroom at Hautlieu School).
On the afternoon of 22nd, Huang Jin and his party headed for Institute of Education (IOE) at University College London (UCL) to attend the plenary session of the annual conference of 2015 UK Confucius Institutes and Classrooms. Madam Xu Lin, Director General of Hanban (Confucius Institute Headquarters), gave a keynote speech and expressed her hope that all the interested parties would work together with honesty and sincerity to create a brighter future for all.
President Huang Jin, Prof. David Greenaway, Vice-Chancellor of The University of Nottingham, Prof. Paddy Nixon, Vice-Chancellor and President of Ulster University, and representatives from another 20 educational institutions home and abroad, attended the discussion held in the second branch venue. During the seminar, Huang Jin pointed out in his speech that the primary aim of establishing Confucius Institutes is to facilitate the popularization of Chinese language and its culture around the world. This facilitation is to not only boost Sino-foreign cultural exchanges, but also enhance the mutual understanding and trust between Chinese and foreign people, and at the same time provide stable and sustainable platforms for the involved educational institutions to conduct related international exchanges and cooperation. He also indicated that, CUPL has set up and operated 3 Confucius Institutes in England, Romania and Barbados so far, and they are all in good growth momentum. In addition, CUPL has treated the construction of Confucius Institutes as an indispensable part of its strategy of internationalized school operations.CUPL will always try its best to perfect the training of talents to teach Chinese as a foreign language as well as to upgrade its international Chinese teaching level.
Dr. David Joyner, Foreign Co-Director of the Confucius Institute at Bangor University (CI at BU), introduced the experience of his Institute on Sino-British cultural exchanges as well as the cultural communication between China and Wales. He also took the chance to highlight the brand promotion of The Twin Dragons.
The Chinese Dragon and the Welsh Dragon, as well as a variety of colorful activities were sponsored by the said CI at BU. The Chinese Co-Director of that Institute, Prof. ZengTao, vividly demonstrated the unremitting efforts of CI at BU in trying to establish connections with its local brethren as well as its vision to create a CI Network in the hosting country. At the beginning of this China-UK Golden Age, it is important to integrate the exchanges in economy, finance, law, business, culture and policy into a coherent whole, and pragmatically carry out cultural and educational exchanges to promote mutual understanding between the two countries on the basis of the Chinese language’s international popularization.
On the morning of 23rd,the annual conference of UK Confucius Institutes and Classrooms came to a successful conclusion.
The theme of this round of the conference was the sustainable development of Confucius Institutes and Classrooms. About 500 representatives attended the meeting, including the heads of a group of UK universities where the said Confucius Institutes operate, Chinese and foreign co-directors of those UK CIs, principals and key teachers of local primary and secondary schools which host CI classrooms, the persons who are in charge of Chinese partners, and so on.
