Cultural Challenge

Newcastle Herald

Friday December 26, 2008

ALISON BRANLEY EDUCATION

THE Hunter will be in a position to forge more links with China with plans to establish a Confucius Institute at the University of Newcastle.

The university will become the fifth university in Australia and 308th worldwide to be host to such an institute.

Confucius Institutes are non-profit public institutes aimed at promoting Chinese language and culture and have developed into education centres for Australian companies wanting to do business in China, the general public and Chinese companies and executives wanting to do business in Australia.

Institutes are at University of Adelaide, University of Melbourne, University of Sydney and the University of Western Australia.

The institute at Newcastle is in collaboration with Huazhong Normal University, in China.

The headquarters of Confucius Institutes is in Beijing under the the Office of Chinese Language Council International or Hanban.

The Chinese Government's Ministry of Education estimates that 100 million non-Chinese worldwide will be learning Chinese as a foreign language by 2010.

It plans to establish 500 Confucius Institutes worldwide.

Newcastle University Postgraduate Student Association president Yanping Lu is originally from China.

She said the currency exchange rates had made Australia an attractive option for Chinese students and businesses.

© 2008 Newcastle Herald

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