From left: Executive Director of BIMAP, Dr Sonia Greenidge-Franklyn; BIMAP Chairman, Benson Straker; Co-Director of the Confucius Institute, Francois Jackman; and Dr Qingbao Song, Co-Director of the Confucius Institute during the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding.
Mandarin move
Students attending the Barbados Institute of Management and Productivity (BIMAP) have expressed an interest in learning Mandarin.
And BIMAP has answered their call, signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Confucius Institute, which for the past two years has aimed to provide
the Chinese language and cultural training resources, as well as facilitate cultural and educational exchanges to Barbadians.
This partnership, according to BIMAP Chairman Benson Straker, would not have been possible without the kind assistance of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, and the Barbados Investment and Development Corporation (BIDC).
Addressing the signing ceremony held recently at the Wildey, St Michael institution, he recalled that at the beginning of July – after requests from students of the Bachelors of Business Administration programme – BIMAP approached the BIDC to initiate collaboration with the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China.
“Indeed, our students and the business community have seen the need for Barbadians to acquire a working knowledge of this language, as trade with China increases and as we welcome more