XMU Delegation Present 2015 Joint Conference of European Confucius Institutes
| The Joint Conference of European Confucius Institutes was held in Sofia, capital of Bulgaria from September 6 to 8. More than 150 representatives, including 44 deans from 22 European countries, attended the conference. Representatives from Xiamen University include Zhan Xinli, vice president, Su Zixing, Party Secretary of XMU Confucius Institute, Han Zhen, dean of Confucius Institute at University of Malta，and Hu Yonghong, dean of Confucius Institute at University of Wroclaw, Poland. In the morning of Sept 7, before the conference, 200 people took part in the opening ceremony of the new demonstration Confucius Institute at Sofia University. In his speech, Premier Boyko Gorisov gave high opinion of the role that Confucius Institute has played in the promotion of education, cultural exchange and business between the two countries. President Rumvana Kolarova sent a congratulatory letter to the conference. Todor Tanev, Minister of Ministry of EducationandScience, Vanya Kastreyanva, vice Minister of Ministry of Education and Science, Xu Lin, Secretary-general, director of China Hanban(Confucius Institute Headquarters), Ma Jianfei, deputy director of Hanban, Wei Jinghua, Chinese ambassador in Bulgaria, Ivan Ilchev, president of University of Sofia, etc. attended the ceremony. At the joint conference, Mr. Ivan Ilchev expressed his thanks to Hanban for its persistence in promoting Chinese language in the world and he also said that University of Sofia would spare no effort to offer assistance in the construction of the demonstration Confucius Institute In her speech, Xu Lin emphasized that the majority of the representatives for this conference are from the countries related to China’s “Belt and Road Initiative”. Confucius Institutes should make contribution to the strategy, promoting the friendly contacts, cultural exchange and business between these countries and China. On the other hand, the strategy of “Belt and Road Initiative” also bring new vitality to the development of Confucius Institute. She hopes that all the Confucius Institutes should bring their respective characteristics into play, expanding their construction, improving the quality of education for the local community people. Xiamen University has established 7 Confucius Institutes in England, France, Germany, Malta and Poland. Besides providing teaching of mandarin and cultural activities, these institutes also served as a bridge to promote the cooperation between Xiamen University and the top universities in the above countries in the exchange of students and scholars as well as academic research. On September 10, the board of directors of University of Malta and Xiamen University had a meeting in University of Malta. Prident Juanito Camilleri, Rector, and Zhan Xinli, Vice President of Xiamen University, as well as both sides’ representatives, reviewed the achievements in the past 6 years and discussed a further cooperation, including (1)Erasmus project, which will provide chances for both sides’ administrative staff to study each other’s administrative model, and (2) Promote the exchange of students in some subjects , such as arts, tourism. Xiamen University will encourage students of arts to study in University of Malta while University of Malta will send students to Xiamen University to take part in the Chinese Culture Summer Camp. Zhan Xinli also met the volunteer teachers there and encouraged them to learn different culture while teaching Chinese language, serving as civilian envoys for the exchange of cultures between the two countries. So far there have been 166 Confucius Institutes and 226 Confucius Classrooms all over 40 European countries. 2014 statistics shows that there were 240,000 registered students. These institutes held more than 12,000 various cultural activities which attracted 2,530,000 people. |
