The UK & Ireland Confucius Institutes Conference Held in Dublin

On September 23rd, the UK & Ireland Confucius Institutes Conference was held at the University College Dublin, Ireland. Mary Mitchell O’Connor T.D., Minister of State for Higher Education of Ireland, Andrew Deeks, President of the University College Dublin, Dolores Kelly, Head of Northern Ireland Assembly All-Party Group on China, Yue Xiaoyong, Chinese Ambassador to Ireland and Zhao Guocheng, Deputy Chief Executive of the Confucius Institute Headquarters and Deputy Director of Hanban were present at the opening ceremony. Over 100 people including Chinese teacher representatives from 31 Confucius Institutes and Confucius Classrooms in the UK and Ireland attended the conference.

Andrew Deeks, President of the University College Dublin, delivered a welcoming speech. He said in his speech that since the establishment of the Confucius Institute at the University College Dublin in 2006, it has actively promoted cooperation among China-Ireland education, culture, business and academic institutions and made positive contributions to developing and deepening friendly relations between the two countries. After 11 years of efforts, the Confucius Institute has made remarkable achievements in terms of the number of students, the quality and influence of school running, which has become a significant part of the international development and the multicultural campus of the University College Dublin. With the support of the two governments, the Model Confucius Institute Building at the University College Dublin is about to be completed, which is not only a milestone in the development of the Confucius Institute, but also a symbol of the vigorous growth of Chinese education in Ireland.

Mary Mitchell O’Connor T.D., Minister of State for Higher Education of Ireland, said that currently, the exchanges and cooperation between Ireland and China in areas like education are flourishing. Outstanding achievements have been made in cooperative education, teacher-student exchange, language learning, cultural exchanges, scientific research etc. In recent years, more and more Irish people become fond of Chinese, and the number of students studying in China has increased continuously. This is inextricably linked with the fruitful work and efforts of the Confucius Institute. The Irish government attaches great importance to Chinese teaching and strongly supports the development of the Confucius Institute. In 2020, Chinese will be listed into foreign language subjects of college examination and from the year of 2022 on, Chinese exam will be officially held in the college entrance examination.

Yue Xiaoyong, Chinese Ambassador to Ireland, said in his speech that the Confucius Institute has effectively strengthened the links among universities and colleges in China and those in Ireland and the United Kingdom. It has become an important platform for Chinese teaching and cultural exchanges, serving as a bridge in the cooperation between China and Ireland in education, culture, economy, trade and other fields.

Zhao Guocheng, Deputy Chief Executive of the Confucius Institute and Deputy Director of Hanban said in his keynote speech that since 2004, the Confucius Institutes across the world have achieved a leap-forward development through the joint efforts of both Chinese and foreign parties. The UK & Ireland Confucius Institutes (Classrooms) have made marvelous achievements in such aspects as school scale, teacher training and teaching materials construction, culture and academic exchanges, deserving full recognition. He pointed out that nowadays, the Confucius Institute has entered a new growing stage of “pioneering for the second time” and its main task now is to continuously improve the quality and connotation of the school-running and promote the sustainable development of the Confucius Institute. It is hoped that all Confucius Institutes will explore the development plan of the new period deeply and focus on the bottleneck problems of local teachers in combination with the actualities and situations of various nations and schools, so as to promote the institutes to a new level.

After the opening ceremony, the representatives have conducted an in-depth and profound discussion about issues in the new situation such as the efficiency promotion of the Confucius Institutes, the development planning, the sustainable development and multi-channel financing, the project implementation experience of scholarships and core teachers, Chinese examinations and teacher visa, the cooperation with local enterprises.

During the conference, the representatives visited the Model Confucius Institute Building at the University College Dublin which is about to be completed. The building is co-financed by the Ministry of Education of Ireland, the University College Dublin and the Confucius Institute Headquarters, with a construction area of more than 2,000 square meters. It has a number of functional areas such as Chinese culture display area, teaching area and offices. The Confucius Institute at the University College Dublin was founded in 2006, which is one of the earliest Confucius Institutes in Europe. It has been awarded the “Advanced Confucius Institute” in the globe for several times and has been approved as the “Model Confucius Institute” in 2013.

At present, the UK and Ireland have set up 31 Confucius Institutes and 170 Confucius Classrooms and Chinese language teaching is promoted in more than 800 local primary and secondary schools. In 2016, the number of all kinds of students reached up to 148,000 while over 4,500 various cultural activities were carried out that involved more than 900,000 citizens.