On the afternoon of May 23, Sui Guangjun, the Party secretory of Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, and Zhong Weihe, deputy Party secretary and the president of GDUFS met Mohammed Shaaban, the Under-Secretary-General of UN, who payed his first visit to the university, in the Greeting Hall of North Campus. The participants also include Jiao Fangtai, director of International Cooperation and Exchange Office, Gao Yunjian, party secretary of School of Translation and Interpreting Studies, Ping Hong, director of School of Translation and Interpreting Studies and Li Qing, secretary-general of Guangdong Research Institute for International Studies.
Sui Guangjun welcomed the visit of Muhammad Shaaban and expressed best wishes for the meeting. Muhammad Shaaban mentioned that this was his first visit to Guangzhou and also the first visit to GDUFS. Before the meeting, he also visited the language lab and was impressed by advanced technology and equipment.
Shaaban pointed out that the main purpose of his visit was to sign the cooperation memorandum on behalf of the United Nations with GDUFS. "UN have had some small co-operations with GDUFS before. But tomorrow, the two sides will establish a formal and long-term cooperation." He said that in the following five years, there would be 30% to 40% of the professional translators getting retired from the United Nations, while excellent interpreters in the world including Chinese interpreters were still scarce. He hoped for a closer co-operation through the memorandum.
Sui Guangjun introduced the achievements in cultivating excellent translator of the university. He thought that language was the link contacting different cultures and countries. GDUFS is known by the outstanding teaching of 13 foreign languages in South China and will add a new language soon. In the future, GDUFS will provide more excellent translation talents to the United Nations. Sui Guangjun stressed that translators of GDUFS played an important role in large-scale government activities. For example, Zhan Cheng, deputy director of the School of Translation and Interpreting Studies, served as the main translator for the Beijing Olympic Games. Sui Guangjun said, "We believe that this agreement signed by Mr. Shaaban on behalf of the United Nations will play an important role in promoting the teaching of simultaneous interpreting and profession building in GDUFS. I wish we can get the support from Mr. Shaaban and relevant agencies of UN in more language areas."
Subsequently, Ping Hong gave a brief introduction to the history and achievements of GDUFS. He mentioned that the university had established many professional translation projects to promote the local economy and China's economic development during the last 50 years of language education,. Since the reform and opening up in 1978, it had established over 20 different levels of professional translation (including Bachelor in Translation, Master of Translation and Interpreting, Master of Arts in Translation Studies, PhD in Translation Studies), becoming the only university that had such a wide range of translation teachings in South China. Currently, there have been more than 300 students graduated with the degree of Master in Translation.
Zhong Weihe also mentioned that GDUFS had been committed to developing excellent translators. With thedevelopment of Guangdong economy, there is increasing demand for more outstanding interpreters. Therefore, GDUFS established seven professional translation training programs and built cooperative relations with over 70 international organizations worldwide. He said that the university would strive to cultivate excellent students to meet the requirements of the United Nations in the future.
Shaaban also described the working process and requirements of the United Nations New York headquarters of General Assembly Affairs and Conference Management Division (DGACM) for language services and the recruitment and assessment evaluation system of translators and interpreters. The United Nations will provide training resources such as educational audio recordings and documents to the universities that cooperate with UN. It will train the translation staff by studio, lectures and teaching to help them prepare the examinations and assessments. He also hoped that our students would be able to have two or three months' internship in the United Nations, which will promote the development of United Nations and GDUFS.
Zhong Weihe expressed heartfelt thanks to Shaaban's visit again, and hoped that both sides would establish a long-term, harmonious and cooperative relations in the future .
