The Chinese language has become more popular worldwide with the rapid increase in the number of Confucius Institutes
Education Minister Zhou Ji said that as of this month, 249 Confucius Institutes and 56 Confucius classrooms have been established in 78 countries.
Zhou, who is also vice-president of the council of the Beijing-based Confucius Institute Headquarters, told the ongoing 3rd Confucius Institute Conference that they have held 6,000 classes with more than 120,000 registered learners and organized 2,000 cultural activities with 1.2 million people attending.
The University of Helsinki started Chinese teaching in 1974 and opened Finland’s first Confucius Institute in 2007. Three Chinese and two Finnish teachers are co-chairing the institute.
Ou Keping, chairman of Chongqing University in southwest China, said he had witnessed surging demand from foreign universities.
Sponsoring two Confucius Institutes in Thailand and Italy, staff of his university have been busy improving their language-teaching ability.
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Source: China View