200 UAE schools to teach Chinese language in coming years – min.

UAE Minister of Education Hussain Al Hammadi said 200 schools will teach the Chinese language within the coming few years in order to cope with accelerating international development in the fields of science and technology.

The UAE is taking drastic steps to attain the Sustainable Development Goals. The move falls within the framework of serving the SDG 4 on Quality Education.

The ministry has launched the “Chinese Language Program: Current Status and Future Plan” under which the UAE will start teaching the Chinese language in the academic year 2019-2020 which is due to start in September.

The ministry will recruit 150 Chinese language teachers for the academic year 2019-2020 within the framework of implementing the first stage of the program which will include 60 schools.

Students in grades 7 to 12 in 60 schools will have a chance to learn the Chinese language under the first phase of the project.

The ministry also plans to establish a Chinese Center so that Chinese specialists will monitor and evaluate the Chinese language teaching process, Hammadi said.

As the minister called on Twitter for social dialogue about the program, the UAE people were enthusiastic about program, saying they are proud that their children will learn the Chinese language alongside the English.

They even called for offering their children a chance to choose from several foreign languages, such as the Korean and Japanese languages, as a third language.

They commended the UAE’s wise leadership which offers all needed support for the educational sector and its ambitious plans.