ISLAMABAD: After gaining a significant foothold in the school curriculum of Pakistan’s southwestern province of Balochistan, basic Chinese will now be taught in different neighborhoods in Riyadh from March 10 to April 14, Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Education announced on its website.
The course will take place twice a week for four weeks, according to the ministry’s General Department of Education in Riyadh, and the announcement noted that “registration will take place online, while the course will also be broadcast online to benefit the whole educational community.”
Late last year, as part of a wider employment drive, the government of Balochistan and Chinese authorities began taking initiatives to start Chinese language classes all over the province and specifically in Gwadar, the port-city that is home to the multi-billion dollar China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).
There has been a rising interest in Chinese language schools across the world, including in Asia and Africa with Uganda, South Africa and Kenya focusing more on Mandarin in schools with the help and funds of Chinese government institutes.
In Saudi Arabia, the decision to introduce Chinese came during the latest visit of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to China, where he agreed to set a plan to implement it.
