During Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s State Visit to China in February 2019 Saudi Arabia and China agreed to include the Chinese language as a curriculum at all stages of education in schools and universities across the Kingdom.In August 2023, Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Education instructed all public and private secondary schools in the Kingdom to implement a 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. Education departments across the Kingdom began making 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.” Saudi Education Ministry directive for 2 weekly Chinese language classes [https://saudigazette.com.sa/article/635154]
According to China Daily, in October 2023, education authorities from Saudi Arabia and China signed an agreement on enhancing cooperation in Chinese language education between the two countries. “We will invite Chinese teachers to our country to teach Mandarin and also send Saudi teachers to study Chinese in China,” said Salim Alanazy, assistant deputy minister of the Education Ministry of Saudi Arabia.
As the main supporter for Chinese language education in Saudi Arabia, the Beijing Language and Culture University is compiling curriculum, training Chinese teachers and cultivating teaching resources for Saudi Arabia. More than 800 Saudi students will study in China in the next five years, according to the agreement.
This month, China Daily reports that 175 Chinese language teachers for primary and middle schools will begin their careers in Saudi Arabia becoming the first batch of Mandarin teachers to serve in Saudi Arabia. China plans to send 800 Chinese language teachers to Saudi Arabia.
The agreement – initially agreed to in 2019 – has moved ahead despite difficulties associated with the Covid 19 epidemic and the complexity of the Chinese language.
In an analysis for the Carnegie Endowment, Hind Al Ansari examined some of the challenges of introducing Chinese in Saudi Arabia (or anywhere):
“The difficulty of learning Chinese was corroborated by Saudi students attending a university in northern Saudi Arabia. In a research study by Saudi professor Hammad Al Shammari, 80 percent of the 25 male and female student participants strongly agreed that Chinese is more challenging to learn than Arabic. In Arabic, for example, while one word can have multiple meanings depending on the context, in Chinese, the meaning of a word changes based on subtle changes in pronunciation.”
“Furthermore, teaching Chinese in a conservative culture may require the exclusion of certain cultural practices. Ling Mei, a former graduate student at NYU in Shanghai, reflected on her time teaching Chinese in Saudi Arabia and described teaching Chinese culture in the kingdom as a major challenge. For example, she had to consider religious sensitivities when deciding which cultural practices to include in the curriculum.”