Tanzanian officials go for Chinese language studies

China's Confucius Institute in collaboration with Tanzania's Muslim University of Morogoro have introduced special program for government officials learning Chinese language at the latter's campus.

Currently, there are 44 officials from the Immigration Department and Tanzania Police Force who are undergoing each Chinese language course at the higher learning institution.

Head of the Centre for Chinese Studies, Institute of Confucius of China at the Muslim University of Morogoro (MUM), Sun Xiaofei said the language course was introduced to boost service delivery to government officials including officers from the Immigration Department.

She said there are 20 officials from Immigration Department and 24 from the Police Force in two learning programmes.

"Confucius Institute is offering Chinese language in Tanzania as more people are enrolling in the course, including government officials,"she said, adding that those who will perform well will be sponsored for further studies in China.

"It's almost one month since we started the program and students are showing progress as some have already started spelling and speaking the Chinese language, this is a great achievement to us," he added.

Bertha Matiku is one of the students who are benefiting from the Chinese language course at the university who expressed hope of speaking fluently the language in the near future.

"It is only one month since we started learning the language and we are improving," she said.

Badru Mtambo is another student who described the language as international thus learning it has good prospects.

"I am proud for being part of few Tanzanian students learning the Chinese language. China has developed in terms of economy, technology and trade, so understanding the language is important for me and Tanzania as a nation," he said.