Chinese to be an undergrad compulsory language

The Chinese language will become one of six compulsory languages for the undergraduate international relations course at the University of Dodoma in Tanzania, a move that aims to widen the scope of opportunities for future graduates in the country.

Professor Peter Msofe, UDOM's deputy vice-chancellor for academic, research and consultancy, said the university has submitted proposals for a review of the international relations program to the Tanzania Commission for Universities.

"We're waiting for approval from TCU to start the new program in the next academic year," Msofe said after opening the third Chinese Bridge Proficiency Competition for foreign students, organized by the Confucius Institute at UDOM.

Msofe said the higher learning institution requires a student who is pursuing a bachelor of arts degree in international relations to pursue two out of six compulsory languages. The others will be Kiswahili, Arabic, Japanese, Korean and English.

Lu Youqing, the outgoing Chinese ambassador to Tanzania, welcomed the move, saying students who pursue Chinese stood to benefit from a number of opportunities, including scholarships to China and employment in Chinese companies in the country.

"Graduates who intend to travel to China and do business will largely benefit," Lu said.

Chinese influence on the East African country is increasing, including the construction of two primary schools in Tanzania.

The Confucius Institute in the country has played a key role in enhancing bilateral relations between Tanzania and China.

China established the Confucius Institute (Hanban) with the objective of teaching Chinese language and culture to foreign students to equip them with knowledge in communication while engaging them in business or academic matters.

China has a variety of options at many universities that foster modern global technologies, including communications, civil engineering, automation and medicine. The Confucius Institute offers six categories of scholarship for master's and bachelor degree levels.

The benefits are believed to be many, since students will be in a position to get more knowledge to enable China to strengthen its foreign policy. China has crafted a new investment policy directed at African countries to widen the teaching of science and technology.

In 2014, China built two schools under the Sino-Africa Friendship Primary Schools Project at a cost of $3.23 million.

The schools are fully furnished with modern teaching and learning facilities, and students enrolled in the schools will have the chance to learn the Chinese language and culture.

The schools came at the time when the University of Dar es Salaam and University of Dodoma began offering courses in the Chinese language through a new Confucius Institute to encourage more Tanzanian students to embrace Chinese language courses

Tanzania's Ministry of Education, Science, Technology and Vocational Training has picked six secondary schools for a special program for students to learn Chinese starting this year.

Twelve Chinese language teachers from China have completed a teaching methodology course on how to teach the subject in the six selected secondary schools.

This year's Annual Employment and Earnings Survey and Integrated Labor Force Survey in Tanzania found that there were 2.9 million newly created jobs between 2005 and 2014.

The Chinese language can positively contribute to the country's industrialization drive as well as its goal of becoming a middle-income economy by 2025.

More than 100 Chinese companies now operate in Tanzania.

"So we encourage students to go for the Chinese language, because our aim is to assist this nation so that one day it will become highly developed, and this can be done," said Lu, the ambassador.

For China Daily

(China Daily Africa Weekly 09/29/2017 page27)