Policy and Practice: The Journey of Chinese Language Education in the UAE

Official Chinese education in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) began in the early 21st century. To improve the management level and maintain relations with the Chinese in Dubai, the Dubai Police School began offering a Chinese course in 2003. As of 2006, Al Mushrif Chinese School became the first public school in the Middle East to officially use the Chinese language to teach (renamed in 2015 to Hamdan bin Zayed School). In 2019, the UAE Ministry of Education announced the incorporation of Chinese into the national basic education system. It would promote Chinese language teaching in 200 public schools before 2030. There are currently 158 public schools offering the Chinese language in the UAE’s “Hundred Schools Project”, with 54,000 students learning Chinese and 172 Chinese teachers by 2022. In just 20 years, as the first Arabic-speaking country to include the Chinese language in the country’s national education system, the UAE has developed Chinese language teaching from a partial Chinese vocational education to one of the most significant subjects in the country’s national education system. This is due to the increasingly close political and economic relations between China and the UAE and the continuous implementation and deepening of Chinese language education policies. This situation is both an opportunity and a challenge. The purpose of this paper is to briefly introduce the current situation, background, and characteristics of Chinese language teaching in the UAE. Firstly, through a comparative study, it introduces and compares the development of Chinese language teaching in the UAE with that in Thailand and the United States, analyses what characteristics and areas for improvement there are in Chinese language teaching in the UAE at present, and makes recommendations. Secondly, it will attempt to analyze the current situation of Chinese language teaching in the UAE by examining the available public news about Chinese language teaching in the UAE and the recruitment notices for Chinese language teachers in the UAE over the years, based on which a preliminary analysis of the challenges in implementing the Chinese language education policy in the UAE will be made. It will also forecast the trends of Chinese language teaching in the UAE in the coming years. It is hoped that this article can provide some references for Chinese language teachers in the UAE, policymakers of Chinese education in the UAE in the future, and even Chinese education policymakers in Arabic-speaking countries.

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