The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has decided to establish Confucius Institute (CI) at the University of Peshawar in collaboration with Northwest University of China. Once complete, the centre will offer Chinese language and culture course for preparing students to reap maximum fruits from the China Pakistan Economic Corridor and its related project.
China Study Centre (CSC) Director Professor Zahid Anwar said the CI was important for the students of KP and FATA in order to help them take advantage of the opportunities arising from CPEC.
Anwar said students could immensely benefit from CPEC and related projects if they had the understating of the Chinese language and culture. The academic said the Northwest University of China would also set up a comparable institute in China that will teach Pakistani languages and culture to the students in China, adding that knowing each other’s culture and language was indispensable for bringing the two nations together and smooth completion of CPEC projects.
Confucius Institutes have achieved a prominent status among all cultural exchange platforms and known to be the best in providing an understanding of Chinese language and culture to students in other countries. The primary goal of CI was to reinforce friendship and cooperation between China and other countries.
Anwar stressed that the CPEC was an essential component of One Belt and One Road (OBOR) project, which had necessitated the need for students to know the Chinese language and culture professionally. He said OBOR involved 80 countries and all trade would revolve around Pakistan, hence it was important for the government to prepare their youth for the future.
Anwar also opined that China Study Centre (CSC) at UoP had also started to explore the further necessary steps to strengthen the Pak-China ties, besides promoting Pak-China culture and language. Currently, the CSC is engaged with many research projects that would help policy makers in various CPEC projects, he added.