Hanban provides grant for establishment of Confucius Institute at Antigua and Barbuda Institute for Continuing Education

In October 2018, Antigua and Barbuda’s Education Minister Michael Browne visited the Confucius Institute Headquarters in China with a larger delegation from the Government Antigua and Barbuda. Michael Browne and the other members of his delegation had talks with Deputy Chief Executive of the Confucius Institute Headquarters Ma Jianfei and later signed an Agreement on the Joint Establishment of the Confucius Institute in Antigua and Barbuda on October 8, 2018. Under the terms of the agreement, Antigua and Barbuda’s first Confucius Institute (CI) would be established at the Antigua and Barbuda Institute for Continuing Education (ABICE) and supported by the Zhejiang Foreign Languages Institute. The purpose of the CI is carry out the Chinese language teaching and strive to provide vocational education training for youth based on local needs. The CI at ABICE was officially launched on November 15, 2019. At the launch ceremony, Deputy Director of Education Lynn Weste-Payne said that the CI would ‘play a positive role in expanding educational and cultural exchanges and cooperation between the two countries and enhancing mutual understanding and friendship between the two peoples.’ Education Minister Michael Browne remarked that ‘it is not enough that Math and English be compulsory subjects. Math and English being compulsory subjects was 20 years ago. […] I think that in order for our students to be adequately prepared […] a foreign language must be included and regarded […] as not only an add-on, but as a must in order to survive in this global economy.’ The CI was officially inaugurated on December 1, 2019.

Additional details

While many of the sources state that the Antigua and Barbuda Institute for Continuing Education (ABICE) is involved or will "host" the Confucius Institute, other sources state that the actual location is on the UWI Five Islands Campus. Because the official Confucius Institute website corroborates the latter, the OSM link is for the UWI Five Islands campus.

Number of official sources

11

Number of total sources

15