UTech Jamaica to start Mandarin classes in September under China education pact

The University of Technology, Jamaica (UTech) is preparing to launch Mandarin language teaching from September, under a two-year arrangement with the Centre for Language Education and Cooperation (CLEC), which falls under China's Ministry of Education.

As part of the deal, CLEC will provide qualified lecturers, while UTech will furnish teaching spaces, accommodation, medical coverage and administrative backing. Delivery will sit within the Language Teaching and Researching Centre (LTRC) in the Faculty of Education and Liberal Studies, the unit that handles language instruction and academic literacy work.

The pact was formalised earlier this month at the School of Hospitality and Tourism Management Hotel on the university's Papine campus.

The LTRC already runs programmes in Spanish, Japanese and French, along with academic writing support. Tresecka Campbell-Dawes, who heads the centre, said the new offering could grow well beyond entry level.

"It is our hope that with the onboarding of this new lecturer, we will be able to offer in addition to basic Mandarin, intermediate and advanced Mandarin courses to our students in the future." She also said short conversational Mandarin courses may be made available to the wider public through UTechOpen, the university's lifelong learning school.

Chancellor Lloyd Carney, who helped open the partnership through the Chinese embassy, described it as part of a wider effort to build stronger links with China. Referring to Chinese progress in areas such as renewable energy, biotechnology and artificial intelligence, he argued for closer technical cooperation. "There is no field of science that you can look at where the Chinese are not a significant, if not a dominant, player. As a technical university, we must partner with the country that is the most dominant player in the marketplace across numerous technologies," he said. He added that both countries should "share more technical know-how on technical discovery".

President Dr Kevin Brown said the programme fits a broader push to graduate students with wider capabilities. "We want to produce the total student and by that we mean not just a student that is technically capable, but a student that also has other multifaceted skill sets, such as being multilingual," he said. "That is why having this Chinese language programme is so important." He said courses would also be opened to the general public through UTechOpen.

Ding Liguo, director of international exchanges at CLEC, said the signing marks the opening of a longer relationship. "We are a professional organisation committed to helping our foreign partners learn the Chinese language and also to carry out Chinese language teaching programmes," he said. "The agreement is just the beginning of our cooperation. There must be deeper cooperation between us in the future."