The opening ceremony of the Confucius Classroom of Riga Technical University (RTU) will be held on 8 November at 4 p.m., at the small hall of RTU, Kaļķu Street 1. RTU Confucius Classroom is an affiliation of the Confucius Institute and will be located at RTU Faculty of E-Learning Technologies and Humanities (FELT), Kronvalda Blvd. 1.
The opening ceremony will be attended by the Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China to Latvia, Mr. Liang Jianquan, Latvian Director of the Confucius Institute of the University of Latvia Pēteris Pildegovičs and Chinese Director of the Confucius Institute Shang Quanyu, Vice-Rector for Academic Affairs, Professor Uldis Sukovskis, Deputy Rector for International Academic Cooperation and Studies, Professor Igors Tipāns, FELT Dean, Professor Marina Platonova, students of the Chinese language, as well as Chinese students studying at RTU.
RTU Confucius Classroom began its operation before its official opening. It has a library, and at present 21 RTU students and staff members learn the Chinese language. During the opening ceremony, the participants of the Chinese language course will read poems in Chinese, demonstrating their newly acquired language skills.
The Confucius institutes and classrooms are designed with the support of the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China and their aim is to promote the Chinese language and culture. The Confucius Classroom also grants scholarships for study and research in China.
RTU has been actively and purposefully cooperating with China for several years. For example, 20 first-year students from Beijing International Studies University study at RTU. Owing to RTU support, these students learnt the Latvian language in China, and then they spent the study year in Latvia, where they continued studying the Latvian language, the Latvian history and other study courses, thus preparing for studies at RTU already in the Latvian language.
