University of Namibia to open a Confucius Institute

The University of Namibia (UNAM) has reserved 400 square meters of land for the construction of the Confucius Institute in its main campus in Windhoek, director of the institute at UNAM Zhang Sufang revealed on Thursday.

This comes after the China University of Geosciences and UNAM signed in 2011 a Letter of Intent to jointly establish a Confucius institute.

According to Zhang, the institute will be established with the aim to satisfy the demand of learning Chinese language and culture in Namibia.

"The institute will serve as a centre for Chinese language, a platform to deepen relationships with China and Namibia as well as promote the development of multi-culturalism," she said on Thursday.

An official ground-breaking ceremony is slated for June or July, and the construction of the institute is expected to commence soon after.

Namibians are set to benefit from the Confucius Institute, with the first lessons of Chinese language expected to commence in June this year.

Zhang said that UNAM has already received learning resources such as books donated by Hanban, or the China National Office for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language. "The second donation of books is on the way to Namibia," she said.