Seminar to boost intercultural exchange
By Zhang Yu (China Daily)
Updated: 2006-04-24 05:31

An intercultural seminar entitled "Promoting Intercultural Exchange & Cultivating International Understanding" was held by the American Field Service (AFS) Intercultural Programme earlier this month in Beijing to discuss the educational impact of international exchange on high school students.

More than 50 people including professionals and experts in the intercultural realm AFS returnees, volunteers and expatriates, and teachers and students interested in intercultural learning attended the seminar and participated in the discussion.

Tachi Cazal, AFS president, said at the seminar that AFS, as a non-profit and volunteer-driven organization in intercultural learning and exchange, is facing both challenge and opportunity in the Chinese educational market.

Intercultural competence and international understanding are widely regarded as abilities of growing importance for individuals and organizations during globalization. The demand for intercultural learning is soaring worldwide.

AFS has a presence in more than 50 countries and attracts about 11,000 students, adults and teachers each year to participate in the intercultural programmes offered by AFS.

In terms of the one-year programme and in co-operation with local institutions, AFS programmes can currently receive about 80 foreign high school students in host families on the Chinese mainland and send about 200 Chinese counterparts to foreign countries at the same time, Jin Xiaojun, AFS representative to the Chinese mainland, told China Daily.

Obviously, the size of the AFS programmes on the Chinese mainland, as Cazal said, is still very small, compared with the population of 1.3 billion. He said AFS plans to expand its programme offerings and increase participant volume significantly in the next three years.

AFS has operated programmes in China in co-operation with the Ministry of Education, implementing programmes with the China Education Association for International Exchange since 1984.

The AFS Intercultural Programme has evolved from its origins as a volunteer ambulance corps in 1914. Starting from 1947, it initiated intercultural exchange programmes to promote world peace.

It is devoted to creating more such opportunities for children and young adults to improve their abilities in intercultural communication and international understanding so that they might come back to make contributions to the social harmony and development of their own countries.

(China Daily 04/24/2006 page5)