The meeting for the project managers of the Confucius Institutes(CI) in Central and Eastern European countries was held in CIZagreb jointly established by SUIBE and the University of Zagreb onNovember 26 and 27, 2015. Eight project managers from Slovenia,Hungary, Slovakia, Macedonia, Bulgaria and Croatia attended themeeting and discussed issues of common interest revolving aroundthe topic of how to better operate Confucius Institutes inaccordance with the times.
Tina Pirih, CI Ljubljana, gave a presentation on the cooperationbetween CI and Confucius classrooms. Yana Shishkova, ConfuciusClassroom of the 138 Middle School Bulgaria, talked about theadvantages enjoyed by Chinese language teaching in the foreignlanguage education system in Bulgaria. Anna Csiko, CI Hungary,introduced the situation and development strategy of the trainingof local Chinese language teachers in Central and Eastern Europeancountries. Elena Damjanoska, CI Macedonia, analyzed the necessityand looked into the prospect of strengthening connectivity andpromoting cooperation among Confucius Institutes. Jure Marinovicand Jelena Vrhovski, CI Zagreb, explored into the possibility ofleveraging EU funds to run CI projects and approaches tointernationalizing CI projects. Andrea Plesa, volunteers’ manager,CI Zagreb, shared the experiences in working with volunteerteachers.
It was the first time for the participants from the six Central andEastern European countries to attend a meeting of this kind. Takingit as an important platform for exchanging ideas and sharingexperiences, they benefited a lot from the free and candid talksand discussions.