Fu Zemin, President of the Arabic Department at Beijing University’s Faculty of Foreign Languages, said that the Chinese government has decided to accept 400 Egyptian students to study in China this year. He pointed out that this number is much more than what Chinese universities accepted each year.
He said that the cultural exchange agreement between the Cairo University and Beijing University allows 15 students each year and that the Confucius Institute agreement grants scholarships for 25 Egyptian students each year.
“We also grant two scholarships for Egyptian students to study in English at Chinese universities," he said. “But no one has applied for them in three years.”
Shui Chen Ju, Dean of the Faculty of Arabic Studies at the University of Foreign Studies in Beijing, said that Chinese students are interested in studying in Egypt, but the security situation is now unstable. “Last year the students told us classes were interrupted several times due to demonstrations,” he said. “That is why we did not send students this year.”
He said Chinese students can no longer go to Syria and Iran for security reasons, nor to the Gulf because of the weather there. “That is why Egypt is ideal with its nice weather and hospitable people,” he said.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
