From December 9 to 10, the 2019 International Chinese Language Education Conference was held in Changsha. Sun Chunlan, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and Vice Premier of the State Council, attended the opening ceremony and delivered a keynote speech. Chen Baosheng, Minister of Education, also delivered a speech at the opening ceremony. The conference has attracted more than 1000 representatives from Confucius Institutes and Chinese language education organizations in more than 160 countries and regions. With the theme of “innovation and development of international Chinese education in the new era”, this conference gathered guests from all over the world to discuss the development of international Chinese language education in the new era. Prof. Ma Huaide, President of CUPL was invited to attend the conference.
At this conference, CUPL was honored “2019 Outstanding Confucius Institute Chinese Partner”. Only 11 institutions in China including ten colleges and universities and one local education authority won this honor. This is the second time that CUPL has been awarded this honorary title since last year, which is a full affirmation of the relevant work of CUPL in operating Confucius Institutes. At the same time, Mircea Dumitru, foreign Co-Chair of the Board of the Confucius Institute at the University of Bucharest (the CI at Bucharest) Co-Operated by CUPL and the University of Bucharest and President of the University of Bucharest, and Rune Ingebrigtsen, foreign Co-Director of the Confucius Institute at University of Bergen (the CI at UIB), Norway, respectively won the title of “2019 Confucius Institute Individual Performance Excellence Award”.
In the morning of December 10, President Ma Huaide was invited to moderate the parallel session on “Chinese and Foreign Universities Playing the Main Roles of Running Confucius Institute”. During the parallel session, participants held full and effective discussions and reached a series of consensus. At the closing ceremony of the conference, President Ma delivered a report on behalf of the second parallel session and introduced the performance of the Confucius Institutes co-established by CUPL and its foreign partners. In his speech, President Ma proposed ten approaches and four solutions to advance the innovative development of Confucius Institutes, including: development direction guided by Hanban (Confucius Institute Headquaters), improved and sound institutional arrangement, clear positioning, political commitment, frequent communication, qualified faculty, prominent teaching capacity, various activities, advanced equipment and sufficient financial support; the four solutions are: first, we need to establish a guarantee mechanism, form a synergy, and realize extensive consultation and joint contribution for shared benefits; second, we need a quality curriculum and teaching materials to achieve connotative development. Confucius Institutes should improve teaching capacity of the Chinese language and compile excellent textbooks featuring the highlights of the Chinese culture; third, we need to make our faculty stronger and realize synergistic development. We should cultivate and support key faculty members, and speed up the professionalization and localization of teachers; and fourth, we should provide cultural publicity through various dimensions and form an effect of radiation so that Confucius Institutes will play a role as bridge and bond for promoting the exchange and integration of different civilizations.
Prof. Xu Lan, Director of the Office of International Communication and Exchange, Ms. Li Dandan, Director of CI Office, and Mr. Zhang Hongzhe, Deputy Director of CUPL School Office.
