Egyptian Students Can Soon Learn Chinese as a Second Language

As far as second languages go, Egyptian students have their pick of the litter. You've got French, you've got German... heck, you can even learn English, if you're so inclined. And soon enough, pre-university schools will officially be allowed to add Standard Chinese as an optional foreign language. The Ministry of Education formalised the agreement with the Ambassador of China, and will be cooperating with China's Confucius Institutes (which are public educational partnerships between Chinese educational facilities and those of foreign nations) in order to implement these lessons into the nation's curriculum.

"The Egyptian-Chinese relationship is old and runs deep," said Dr. Tarek Shawky, the Minister of Education. "The Egyptian state is keen to benefit from the unique experiences of the Chinese."

This wouldn't be the first time China has cooperated with the Ministry of Education. They've helped build solar power plants in schools, create smart classrooms, and installed electronic screens in many of Egypt's secondary schools. Two Confucius Institutes can be found in Egypt, one which partners with Cairo University and one that partners with Suez Canal University. Now it’s just a manner of time before our kids start showing off their fluency in Chinese by upstaging us at restaurants and bragging about knowing the latest memes on Weibo.