Olympic content enriches Chinese education

(BEIJING, December 26) -- When Beijing won the right to stage the 29th Olympiad, BOCOG promised to launch an Olympic education program among the 400 million primary and secondary school students in China.

That came true at the end of 2006, when 556 schools across the country were listed as model schools for Olympic education. With the "Heart-to-Heart" program, over 200 schools were linked to their partners all over the world.

With an Olympic focus added to their curriculums, teachers and students found their school life more interesting. At Beijing Yangfangdian Central Primary school, a teacher gave out a unique extra-curricular homework assignment: count the gold medals that China grabbed in the Athens Olympic Games and figure out that percentage in the total number of gold medals awarded during those Olympics. That's not such a difficult question, but the assigning teacher needed to rack her brains before drafting her lesson plan.

To make a cup of muddy water clean is easy for Beijing Dongzhimen Middle School students. They used simple tools to filter the water. The experience gave the pupils food for thought: why not filter the used water at home and reuse it to save running water?

Such practice takes place almost daily in 200 model schools in China's capital city. A curricular system incorporating the Olympic content has been formed.

As part of their Olympic education requirement, Beijing's model schools have engaged in partnerships with schools recommended by the IOC affiliated Olympic Committees of 205 countries and regions in the world. So far 130 Chinese schools have found their counterparts, accounting for 62.2 percent of the total.

The program encourages the schools to conduct student-to-student communication and carry out a series of bilateral activities. In August, the host schools will greet their partner NOC athletic delegation at the Team Welcome Ceremony at the Olympic Village and support athletes at the competition sessions. Additionally, the corresponding delegation will also be invited to visit their partner schools in Beijing.