The program was approved by the Education Secretary of the City of Rio de Janeiro and has the support of the Chinese Consulate General in the city, China’s official Xinhua News Agency reported today.
The Confucius Institute at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro has provided a Chinese language manual in Portuguese and, following the start of the project, will regularly send teachers to three schools to provide training and support to local teachers.
The launch took place on Wednesday at the headquarters of the Chinese Cultural Association in Rio de Janeiro, in the presence of the general director of the Brazilian subsidiary of China’s state oil company, China National Offshore Oil Corporation, sponsor of the pilot project.
Huang Yehua said he hopes “more and more young Brazilians will enjoy, learn, master and use Mandarin, becoming ambassadors for the development of China-Brasil friendship when they grow up”.
In December 2021, a group of 89 Brazilian universities signed an agreement to launch a Chinese language teaching project, together with the Chinese government agency in charge of the Confucius Institute.
The executive director of the Brazilian Universities International Cooperation Group, Rossana Silva, said that the group wants to invest in teaching Mandarin in order to cooperate with Chinese universities and companies in various fields.
The Center for Chinese and Foreign Language Exchange and Cooperation, under China’s Ministry of Education, manages the Confucius Institute, which establishes direct offices in schools and university campuses overseas.
In Portugal, the institute guarantees free Mandarin courses at five Portuguese universities – Porto, Aveiro, Coimbra, Lisbon and Minho.
The Confucius Institute also has offices in several universities in Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, the Universities of São Tomé and Príncipe and the University of Cape Verde.
In April 2021, 21 US congressmen and senators accused Confucius Institute delegates in the United States of pressuring teaching staff to avoid topics that could negatively impact the interests of the Chinese regime.
Other countries have cut ties with Confucius Institutes, including Canada, Australia or Sweden.
