JEDDAH — Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Education has instructed all public and private secondary schools in the Kingdom to implement the program of teaching Mandarin Chinese language at the rate of two classes per week. According to the ministry's directive, the fourth period of every Sunday and Monday shall be assigned to facilitators to teach this language and that this shall be included in the academic time table. The education departments across the Kingdom are making the necessary preparations to implement the Chinese language enrichment program for second year students of secondary schools within the proficiency classes during a semester in the current academic year. The semester will be rotated among the students of the second grade of secondary schools during the academic year. There will be targeted number of schools for teaching Chinese under each educational department. The Ministry of Education will encourage facilitators in the process of teaching the language. This is part of the implementation of the third phase of the application of the tracks system that includes teaching Chinese, new courses, graduation project, elective field, guidance for proficiency classes, hybrid education, and volunteering. The ministerial guide, supplied to the educational departments, emphasized that educational departments would allot at least one proficiency class per week in the entire semester, to implement the Chinese language program, and assign it to a facilitator, whose role is limited to support and guide students for self-learning. The program then will be re-applied on a new section of students for each semester, and materials for special enrichment will be provided for application together with evaluation tools. It is noteworthy that the decision to teaching the Chinese language in Saudi schools was taken during the visit of Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman to the Chinese capital Beijing. An agreement was reached between the two countries to formulate a plan to include the Chinese language as part of the curriculum at all educational levels in Saudi schools and universities. The initiative comes as part of strengthening bilateral cooperation and communication in all fields, in addition to building comprehensive strategic partnership in a way realizing the aspirations of the Saudi and Chinese leaderships.
