A LANGUAGE FOR PROMISING FUTURE

With more and more job opportunities brought about by the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the number of schools and universities teaching the Chinese language is also growing fast in Pakistan. Many top-ranked schools and universities including the National University of Sciences and Technology, Comsats University Islamabad and Arid Agriculture University Faisalabad have made Chinese language a mandatory course in their syllabus.

Mona Kanwal, manager of Chinese language program in Roots Millennium School, said that they started Chinese classes a decade ago, and at that time parents were not much interested in sending their children here, but now "the situation is entirely changed, almost every parent wants his (or her) child to learn Chinese."

According to figures provided by Islamabad-based think tank Pakistan China Institute, over 25,000 students are currently studying Chinese in different classes, and in 2010 the figure was less than 2,000.

In the meantime, studying in China, especially for medical and applied sciences, is also becoming popular for Pakistanis. The Chinese government has raised the number of Pakistani students being provided with scholarships to 20,000, and currently a total of about 30,000 Pakistani students are studying in China, with some of them studying on self-finance basis.

Muhammad Raza Chohan, academic director general at Higher Education Commission of Pakistan, told Xinhua that thousands of Pakistani students are studying in China in various majors under scholarship program.