Chinese Ambassador: We'll support teaching of Chinese in schools

The contestants showed very good knowledge of the Chinese language, said Jana Benicka, head of the Department of East Asian Studies at Comenius University in Bratislava and director of the Confucius Institute at Comenius University, when evaluating the Czech-Slovak qualifying round as part of the 17th annual Worldwide Undergraduate Program in Chinese and Chinese Studies. "This is the second time I have taken part in the competition during my mission in Slovakia. The first time was two years ago, and now I must say that the level of the applicants is increasingly better, and I'm very happy about that," the Chinese Ambassador to Slovakia Lin Lin told TASR press agency after the competition. "China's policy is to open up to the world increasingly and to initiate contacts with various countries around the world, so it's logical, of course, that we also support the development of teaching Chinese throughout the world in order to optimise and accelerate this process," said the ambassador. The seventh annual knowledge competition in the Chinese language took place in Bratislava on Friday (May 18) under the slogan 'One World, One Family'. Kamila Schejbalová from the Confucius Institute at Palacký University in Olomouc (Czech Republic), who has been learning Chinese for four years, won the competition for Czech and Slovak students. She'll represent the Czech Republic and Slovakia in the finals in Beijing in July.