On 25 November 2022, the closing ceremony of the UNZA Japanese Short Course took place. 56 students successfully passed the exam and received the certificates.

The ceremony started with the welcome speech by Dr Hikaru Kusakabe, Study Abroad Coordinator of Hokkaido University, in which he mentioned that learning Japanese would promote friendship and mutual understanding, hence the students are precious human resources for Zambia and Japan. It was followed by the remarks by Professor Jacob R.S. Malungo, Dean of the School of Humanities ans Social Sciences of the University of Zambia and the speech by H.E. Mr Ryuuta Mizuuchi, Ambassador of Japan to the Republic of Zambia, who both congratulated the students for their achievement and emphasized how important it is to deepen the bilateral cooperation between Zambia and Japan, for which learning a new language is the important first step. H.E Mr Mizuuchi added, "I hope you will maintain your interest and zeal to pursue upgrading the Japanese language skills and even exploring a horizon to work or study in Japan in the future."

The course was organised by the University of Zambia in collaboration with Hokkaido University, and four classes (three face to face classes and one online class) at basic level were offered for 10 weeks. The course was open not only for UNZA students but also for public, and some of them participated from different parts of Zambia.

If you are interested in taking the Japanese Short Course, please follow us on Twitter and Facebook, where we post the information of the next course when it is ready.

If you are interested in learning Japanese in general, please visit our Learn Japanese page.