In December 2014, the University of Cagliari signed an agreement with the Hanban (the National Office for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language, a non-profit institution affiliated to the Ministry of Education) in Beijing (through the Confucius Institute of Rome/La Sapienza) to set up a Confucius Classroom within our university, whose main mission will be to disseminate the Chinese language and culture in our territory, through the organisation of Chinese language courses (at all levels) and initiatives relating to Chinese culture.
The year 2014 marked an important milestone for all the Confucius Institutes (broadly speaking, the Chinese counterpart of the British Council, the Goethe Institute, and the Alliance Française) as it marked the 10th year since the creation of the first of them in Seoul in 2004. Since then, the number of Confucius Institutes worldwide has grown exponentially. Currently, there are over 500 Confucius Institutes active in 134 countries and 1000 Confucius Classes. To date, Italy hosts 11 Institutes, distributed among Rome (La Sapienza), Naples (IUO), Bologna, Milan (2, one in Milan Statale and one in Milan UCSC), Turin, Venice, Macerata, Pisa, Padua. Conversely, there are 34 Confucius Classes.
The teaching of the Chinese Language has been active at the University of Cagliari since 2001. Currently, with the start of the activities of the University of Cagliari's Aula Confucio, Chinese language courses have been organised in five upper secondary schools.
Even before its inauguration, the University of Cagliari's Confucius Classroom had already held three Chinese Language and Culture courses of 40 hours each at the Classical High School 'Vittorio Emanuele II'’s National Boarding School, the 'G.M. Dettori' classical high school and the 'Deledda-De Sanctis' Foreign Language High School. Two other courses are currently underway at the 'Euclide' classical/scientific high school and the technical/economic high school 'Pietro Martini'.