The Chinese government has agreed to a proposal submitted by the Ministry of Education, Science, Technology and Sports seeking for 30.8 billion shillings to enable introduction of Chinese language in Uganda’s education syllabus. This language, according to the plan, is supposed to be taught in all secondary schools in the country.

This development is contained in a letter addressed to President Museveni in which the Ministry, headed by the Minister of Education Jessica Alupo, wrote to the president briefing him on various engagements the Ministry has had with Chinese and Korean governments. The letter dated June 10/2015 signed by Alupo, indicates that on 26/5/2015, the Minister travelled to China with a team of Ugandan technocrats where they met with the management of Confucius Institute [China].

The Alupo-led delegation presented a draft proposal seeking for a grant of 30.8 billion shillings from the Chinese government to facilitate the introduction of the Chinese language into the country’s education system at secondary level. The same minister asked for support to the National Curriculum Development Centre (NCDC) and  China agreed to all these requests, adding that the same country gave Uganda five (5) scholarships of a core team of people to learn the Chinese language in China who upon return, will act as master trainers.

The same China offered Uganda more in-service teachers of Chinese language at Makerere University Confucius institute in addition to offering Uganda a team of Chinese teachers to kick start the teaching of Chinese in Ugandan schools as a pilot, in addition to donating instructional materials in teaching and learning Chinese and also opening up regional  Institutes in Uganda.