Udayana University Opens Free Mandarin Language Courses for Students

Language Center of Udayana University (Unud) in collaboration with the Tourism Confucius Institute (TCI) Faculty of Tourism Udayana University held the opening of a free Mandarin language course for students. This event took place on Wednesday (24/04/2024) in the Hall of the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Denpasar Campus.

The opening event was attended by 150 students from 13 faculties at Udayana University. The Mandarin language course is held for two months with native speaking teachers.

Director of China TCI Udayana University Prof. Tao Xianguang said the prospect of learning Mandarin is very important, because as many as 1.6 billion people speak Mandarin, both for industrial needs and the education and tourism sectors.

According to him, having Mandarin language skills means taking advantage of experience and making a positive contribution to cultural exchange. Apart from that, it can support the development of the tourism industry in Bali, help students who want to continue their education in China, and be useful in getting jobs from companies in China.

This was also supported by the Indonesian Director of TCI Udayana University, I Made Sendra, that studying Mandarin could help students get scholarships which were fully covered by the Chinese government.

"For students who want to continue studying Mandarin in China, the Chinese government offers scholarships, the conditions are strict, they must pass HSK 4 and HSK 5," he said.

Mandarin language training is also fully supported by the Head of the Unud Language Center, Prof. I Nyoman Udayana said that the availability of language training rooms could be utilized by all academics at Udayana University.

"We support TCI which is dominant in tourism, and with regard to language it must be facilitated by us with this collaboration to provide Mandarin language training," he said.