Saudi Education Minister Hamad Al-Sheikh addresses the "Teaching Chinese Language in Education" workshop in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, March 23, 2019. Saudi Arabia plans to enrol teachers in a one-year program to teach the Chinese language to local students, Arab News reported on Saturday. The program was revealed by Saudi Education Minister Hamad Al-Sheikh during the "Teaching Chinese Language in Education" workshop held this week in Riyadh. (Xinhua/Tu Yifan)
RIYADH, March 24 (Xinhua) -- Saudi Arabia plans to enrol teachers in a one-year program to teach the Chinese language to local students, Arab News reported on Saturday.
The program was revealed by Saudi Education Minister Hamad Al-Sheikh during the "Teaching Chinese Language in Education" workshop held this week in Riyadh.
He stressed the importance of having a clear plan to qualify several teachers in intensive programs for up to one year to teach Chinese, which could include selected schools from the secondary level in different regions in the first three years.
Teaching Chinese language in various stages of education in Saudi stemmed from the desire to diversify the language tools in education based on the strategic and economic importance of the Chinese language now and in the future, he said.
During the workshop, representatives from King Saud University highlighted its experience in teaching the language since 2010, in which 35 students have been graduated so far.
The minister told the event that the overall strategic goal of teaching Chinese was to make it the third language parallel to English and with the same level of spread in various education systems.
