The end of Hanban and what next for Confucius Institutes

[mungouk]

The former domain hanban.org is now being redirected to http://www.chinese.cn/page/#/pcpage/mainpage in line with the general re-branding that's going on.

 

Hanban is now "Center for Language Education and Cooperation", and who knows what's happening to Confucius Institutes after the disastrous last couple of years in terms of PR.

 

I emailed all the CI centres in the UK (because I happened to have their email addresses) to ask them about what's happening, and here is the first response, from Lancaster.

 

Quote

Confucius Institutes will continue largely the same as they are now. I believe that CI’s will be managed by the Chinese International Education Foundation (CIEF). While it is possible we may see changes to the structure of CI’s further down the line, at the moment I believe CIEF are simply in the process of taking over the management from Hanban. You can read more about it in our news article here.
 
HSK exams should as well continue to be run much the same as they are. I can’t say for certain if Hanban will continue managing HSK exams or if these will also be taken over by CIEF/CLEC, but I doubt there will be any major structural changes made anytime soon. Thank you for pointing out the announcement of “HSK 3.0”, that’s news to me, I’ll have to check that out!
 
I will speak with my colleagues about any changes they may have heard about to the exam system, but I doubt there will be any major changes made before the next exams are announced for 2022.

 

[mungouk]

Given that chinesetest.cn already lists exam schedules of the current HSK/HSKK  for all of 2021 up to December, it does seem likely that there would be no changes to exam arrangements until 2022 at the earliest.

 

 

[杰.克]

My understanding is for all extents and purposes , it is just a name change and won't alter how the front end of the CI works!

 

Here's hoping the CI's stay in the UK for a long time! I feel they only get bad PR in a handful of countries. Predominantly from a global perspective they are welcomed!

[mungouk]

I've had a few replies from the UK Confucius Institutes I emailed, and to summarise:

• Yes, Hanban is gone and CIEF/CLEC is now managing the centres
• CLEC will be "less involved [than Hanban was] with individual CI affairs, with many of the strategic and operational decisions left to the institutional level between the host and Chinese partner institutions."
• None of the UK CIs are expecting to close (unlike the situation in the US for example)

Perhaps most significantly:

• None of the 5 who replied currently know anything about the format or organisation of the new HSK 3.0 exams (and the guy from Lancaster quoted above didn't even know that was happening). 
• One of them said "We are still waiting for further notification from the central testing centre as to how the new testing is going to play out."

 

 

 

[Lu]

I was recently in touch with a Dutch CI, which I was worried was closing, but they assured me that they are not, that their partnership with the university will continue as planned and that the project I was going to do for them will take place. I am not 100% reassured, but it looks like the Hanban changes at least don't affect this CI.