Lashida Taylor, recipient of the 2017 Chinese Ambassador’s Award, receiving her prize from Charge d’ Affaires at the Embassy of China, Mr Zou Xi.
The Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in Barbados has recognised four University of the West Indies (UWI) Cave Hill Campus students who are mastering mandarin as a second language.
Students Malikah Pino, Monifah Coppin, Lashida Taylor and Tianna Scott are recipients of the 2017 Chinese Ambassador’s Award.
Charge d’ Affaires at the Embassy of China, Mr Zou Xi presented the young ladies each with a cheque in the amount of Bds$2 500 during a reception held at the Embassy’s Rockley Christ Church headquarters on Friday evening.
Last year, the Chinese Embassy launched the ‘Ambassador’s Award’ with the aim of supporting the top Chinese language learners at the Cave Hill Campus to further study Chinese language, as well as to deepen the educational cooperation between China and Barbados.
According to the Charge d’ Affaires, significant progress has been made in the field of Chinese language learning in Barbados under the support of the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the UWI Cave Hill and other relevant parties.
Since Chinese classes started approximately six years ago, over 140 UWI students have enrolled. In addition, since its establishment in 2015, the UWI Cave Hill Confucius Institute has offered Chinese courses and training to almost 3 000 persons, assisted four local schools to set up the Chinese courses, held the Chinese Bridge Competition for three consecutive years and successfully become the first HSK (Chinese Proficiency Test) testing centre for Mandarin in the Caribbean.
“What makes us more excited is that the Caribbean Examination Council has officially listed Chinese as one of the optional foreign language courses in the middle schools across the Caribbean region, and soon Chinese courses will be first conducted in pilot schools in Barbados,” Zou disclosed.
“The Chinese Embassy will provide as much assistance to push the Chinese language learning forward in Barbados…. I deeply hope the students can learn and use Chinese language well to become the bridge to promote the friendly cooperation such as cultural and educational exchanges between our two countries, which is exactly the original intention for setting up the Chinese Ambassador’s Award.”
Dr Justin Robinson, Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences, said that such initiatives by the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China and the Confucius Institute provide opportunities for the young and not so young to master Mandarin, which will increase their confidence in engaging China.
“So, for me, this forum is extremely important where we are engaging an emerging world power and we are doing it through the medium of education,” he pointed out.
“The Cave Hill Campus is extremely proud to be an integral part of this collaboration. The Confucius Institute is housed at the Cave Hill Campus and it is the only site in the Caribbean where you can be certified in terms of your fluency in Mandarin. We see this as a very important element in our strategy as a University as we seek to internationalise”.
Minister of Education, Ronald Jones told the students he was extremely impressed with their ability to grasp the Chinese language. He also noted that learning Mandarin will serve them well if they decide to further their studies in China.
“We have been working with the People’s Republic of China over the years in relation to scholarships; young Barbadian students going off to China to study… I can tell you that some on those scholarship winners went off to China without knowing to say hello in Chinese, but they re-emerged with an extremely good understanding and reasonably fluent after a few years in China. Therefore, you all have an advantage in that you are at the Confucius Institute and learning Mandarin and will be ready for such opportunities”. (TL)