Recently, the opening ceremony for the “Chinese into the Classroom” program was held at the conference hall of the Greek Ministry of Education. The ceremony was attended by the Chinese Ambassador to Greece, Du Qiwen, the Greek Minister of Education, Konstantinos Arvanitopoulos, as well as over 100 teachers and students from two model experimental high schools in Athens, along with cultural officials from the Chinese Embassy in Greece.
Du Qiwen provided an overview of the status of Chinese language teaching being conducted by various countries globally, particularly through Greek-Chinese friendship organizations and Greek cultural institutions such as the Confucius Institute at the University of Athens. He highly commended the significance of the “Chinese into the Classroom” program for bilateral educational cooperation and encouraged the students learning Chinese to become future promoters of Chinese-Greek culture and messengers of friendship between the two nations. Arvanitopoulos also spoke highly of the positive implications of incorporating Chinese language teaching into the Greek secondary school curriculum and expressed expectations for further strengthening exchanges and cooperation with China in the field of education.
2013At the beginning of 2013, the Chinese Embassy in Greece proposed that the Greek Ministry of Education incorporate Chinese language teaching into the Greek secondary school curriculum system to meet the growing demand for Chinese language learning among the Greek public and to better adapt to the expanding state of exchanges and cooperation between the two countries. After nearly a year of full consultation and preparation, the Greek Ministry of Education formally decided to open 4 Chinese language classes at the Experimental High School of the University of Athens and the 2nd Model Experimental High School of Athens. With this, Chinese has become a formal curriculum in Greek secondary schools, following English, French, German, and Japanese.
