While Kenyans won’t stop throwing stones at Chinese, Zambians are embracing them into their school curriculum that will soon be examinable.
A delegation led by Zambia’s Permanent Secretary Ministry of Higher Education Mr. Mabvuto Sakala, comprising of officials from the University of Zambia and the Ministry of General Education paid a courtesy visit to Her Excellency Winnie Chibesakunda Zambia’s Ambassador to China at the Mission in Beijing China on 6th May 2019.
Speaking during the meeting, Mr. Sakala said the agreement on the Chinese language curriculum to be entered into between the Confucius Institute and the Ministry of General Education would officially flag-off the implementation of Chinese Language training at secondary school level in Zambia. Additionally, the teaching of the Chinese language would effectively become examinable under the Examinations Council of Zambia starting in 2020.
The Permanent Secretary explained that the agreement to be entered into this week implied that the Government of Zambia would assume official responsibility from the Confucius Institute to roll out the Chinese language in all Secondary Schools countrywide. The signing off ceremony of Chinese language training agreement between the Government of Zambia and the Government of the People’s Republic of China was to be held on 7th May 2019.
“We also want to ensure that we have an assured pipeline of trained Chinese language teachers to support the national rollout of Chinese training and assessment by the Examinations Council of Zambia. In the light of this, we will be discussing with our counterparts here, the development of a fast-track local teacher development programme as prepared by the Confucius Institute at the University of Zambia,” said the PS.
University of Zambia Vice-Chancellor Professor Luke Mumba thanked her Excellency Zambia’s Ambassador to China Ms. Winnie Chibesakunda for her efforts to strengthen the many collaborative initiatives between the two countries.
Her Excellency said that China was very close to the African culture and the initiative to narrow the language barrier would create opportunities for Zambia to benefit more from the developmental efforts being made by the two Countries, welcoming the introduction of the Chinese language as an examinable subject at Secondary Schools in Zambia.
