Confucius arrives at Woodroffe

The Chinese Ambassador to Australia Mr Cheng Jingye joined other luminaries to launch the Northern Territory’s first Confucius Classroom last week at Woodroffe Primary School in Palmerston.

School Principal Sharon Reeves hosted the event that included speeches by Vice-Chancellor Simon Maddocks and NT Education Minister Ms Eva Lawler.

The Confucius Classroom initiative – a principal objective of the CDU Confucius Institute’s initial strategic plan – has been more than three years in the making. The motivating principle is to make Chinese language and culture studies available to NT students from primary school right through to postgraduate higher education.

Professor Maddocks praised the initiative.

“Within the walls of the new classroom a grand osmosis will begin to occur – an osmosis of multi-cultural synergy that will play an important part in bringing together people from different parts of the world,” Professor Maddocks said.

“This is significant in terms of our university’s outreach activities and profile, and builds a language and culture education bridge from the beginning of primary school in Palmerston, directly to our Casuarina campus.”

The CDU Confucius Institute will coordinate the Classroom curriculum, which will incorporate two full-time Chinese teachers, and reach up to 430 students from pre-school to year six.

Minister Lawler said that investing in the Territory’s children was not only the right thing to do, but it also was the smart thing to do. 

“It will be wonderful to have two internationally trained teachers to teach in our classrooms,” she said.