The grand opening ceremony for the 2021 "Chinese Bridge" Mandarin Excellence Programme (hereinafter referred to as MEP) Virtual Intensive Study in China was held on 5 July. Initiated by the Department for Education (DfE) of the British government and delivered by UCL Institute of Education in partnership with the British Council and Centre for Language Education and Cooperation (CLEC) of the Chinese Ministry of Education, MEP mainly serves to have more students on track to fluency in the Chinese language and organises annual intensive study visits to China for students who've gained basic knowledge of the language. This year the China visit summer camp has to be carried out online due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The opening ceremony of the summer camp was chaired by Mr. Ma Jianfei, Director-General of CLEC. Among the honourable speakers are Mr. Tian Xuejun, Vice Minister of Education in China; Mr. Nick Gibb, Minister of State for School Standards of DfE in the UK; Mr. Matt Burney, Director of British Council China and Minister for Culture and Education of British Embassy; Mr. Li Wei, Director and Dean of UCL Institute of Education. Approximately 2000 teachers and students from 56 MEP schools and 14 Chinese host institutions attended the event.
In his speech, Vice Minister Tian Xuejun expressed his appreciation for the Chinese language teaching investments and efforts made by the British counterparts, encouraged the MEP students to master the language and together with the young people in China, to carry on contributing to the everlasting friendship and collaborations between the two countries and to build a better and more harmonious world through mutual endeavour.
Minister Nick Gibb identified the important place that people who speak Mandarin Chinese will have in the UK's future. He emphasised that having people from the UK who speak Mandarin was of strategic importance and would help to make new friendships and partnerships with China, and the MEP students were taking up the challenge of learning something that takes great effort and motivation. In the spirit of Marco Polo, that would continue to create a new era of mutual understanding and deeper connections between the two countries.
Matt Burney British Council China Director stressed that foreign languages were hugely important in today's global economy and Mandarin Chinese was the most spoken language in the world, and students on the programme were building outstanding fluency in both written and spoken language and were giving themselves a valuable edge in numerous fields.
All the speakers spoke highly of the MEP outcomes so far and the outstanding contributions by participating partners in both countries. Future expectations had also been brought up, that more could be done in the fields of Chinese language teaching, cultural exchanges and people-to-people communications. Also at the ceremony, a Mandarin teacher introduced the well-designed language teaching and culture experience plans and two MEP students shared their history in learning the Chinese language, spoke about their passion for learning Mandarin and enthusiasm for the incoming interactions with Chinese friends.
After the opening ceremony, over 1400 British secondary students will embark on a two-week Chinese language learning virtual experience. Embracing the 4 major themes of Panda Zoo, Winter Olympics, School Life and Environment Protection, the 14 Chinese host institutions in 10 cities are on their way to offer diverse, creative and immersive Chinese language courses and cultural experience events in the form of live-streamed teaching, virtual visits, expert interviews, music festivals and local market interactions. (cited and source from Center for Language Education and Cooperation)
