Confucius says school's in, but don't mention democracy
Justin Norrie
February 20, 2011



Great leap forward ... Rouse Hill Public School Mandarin students with teachers Ginny Lim (left) and Lily Fang, a volunteer from China. Photo: Jacky Ghossein

CHINA will pay NSW schools more than $200,000 to promote its language and culture in a move hailed by second-language advocates but seen by others as part of a Chinese "soft power" offensive.

Senior figures from the state Education Department say the venture plays a large part in pushing better literacy in Asian languages. But they concede that situations could arise where it was "best [for students] not to engage in" discussions about controversial subjects such as the massacre in Tiananmen Square or China's human rights record, raising questions about China's influence over the program's content.

The newly formed Confucius Institute, funded largely by China and based at the Education Department's Ryde office, is set to open in April. It will provide teachers from China to help oversee "Confucius classrooms" for more than 3000 students in seven schools from the second half of the year, and has plans to expand the program to more schools.


Since 2004, China has spent millions of dollars establishing Confucius institutes in universities across the world, including Sydney, to support language and culture studies. Dr Phil Lambert, regional director of the department's Sydney branch, said the NSW partnership was the first to be formed with a school body.

The sudden proliferation of institutes worldwide has prompted concerns that the Communist government is using the non-profit public centres as a tool to scrub clean its image abroad.

In an academic paper published last year, the Queensland University of Technology research student Falk Hartig said that "when it comes to certain sensitive topics, Confucius institutes turn quiet or even silent". It would be best to understand them not as "propaganda tools" but as "one instrument of China's cultural diplomacy to wield and bolster Chinese soft power globally".

In NSW, seven bilingual teachers from China would help local teachers "enhance the Chinese language curriculum already in schools, but they'll also go further than that", said Dr Lambert, one of the institute's six board members.

"The syllabus provides baseline Mandarin, and the Confucius classrooms augment that and also add a lot more than that in terms of contemporary culture and also the history of China."

The seven Chinese teachers would also be available to assist at other schools.

Sensitive topics, such as Falun Gong, Taiwan, Tibet and Tiananmen Square, could cause problems if they arose in class, Dr Lambert conceded. "Look, there are topics that are best not to engage in ... there are so many other topics to discuss. But generally our approach in those situations is: this is the view of the issue from the Chinese government, it's a very sensitive matter, and the subject of very strong views in China, there is another view and this is that view. Teachers by and large handle those things very well.

"The main thing is, it's very much in our interests for our children to be learning Mandarin and to have a good understanding of how contemporary China works."

For the first year, the Office of the Chinese Language Council International will pay $150,000 to fund the institute and $10,000 to each of the schools for resources and other expenses. It will also cover the travel, accommodation and salaries of the Chinese teachers. The funding, which will dwarf contributions by other countries to other language programs run by the department, will be reviewed annually.

Staff at Confucius institutes on Sydney university campuses told The Sun-Herald that authorities in Beijing had never threatened their academic freedom.

There was little difference between the work done by Confucius institutes and the activities of France's Alliance Francaise or Germany's Goethe Institut, which are not connected to universities, said Cathryn Hlavka, director of the Confucius Institute at the University of NSW.


http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/confucius-says-schools-in-but-dont-ment...

They probably think its the UK flag 

cods wrote on Feb 20^th, 2011 at 3:51pm:


Perhaps, but while they are being drip-fed other nations communist ideals, they could be learning more about democracy, and their own Australian culture.

I'll bet if you asked each of those children in the above photo if they know what the significance of ANZAC day is, or what the first verse of their Australian anthem is also, they wouldn't have a clue.

We should be promoting and teaching children our own culture, or has this government decided that this is no longer necessary in a multicult user-pays society?

Having an interest in the lanuages and cultures of the power house of our region is a wise thing.
Learning French, Italian etc is good for a hobby but for business Mandarin and Japanese is the way to go.
My wife did her business management degree in Japan for that very reason.

Well being a teacher of more than 30 years with the NSW Dept of Education nothing would surprise me.........

I have enough trouble teaching Australian children the 3R's in between all the extra added curriculum activities of the past 10 years.

I say roll on a new Govt and roll out some of the rubbish that we are expected to teach children!!

Mellie..its been decades since China was a model for Communism..its the most capitalist country on the planet.
The Chinese govt can say it embraces Communism all it likes but we all know that since Deng Xiaoping the Chinese leadership and the country has grown to be anything but Communist.
Never get between the Chinese and a dollar 

Which culture is that mellie?
Or do you mean English culture?

adelcrow wrote on Feb 20^th, 2011 at 4:24pm:



She means the Ausssie culture..... and if you don't know about it than it is time you got off the internet, into a car or bus or train and took a long journey out into the great land called Australia.

Nothing English about OZ mate..... we were built more on the German, Irish and whatever in our great land!!