The Chinese Ministry of Education, through the Chinese embassy to Kenya, on Wednesday donated a batch of books and audio-video materials to the Egerton University of Kenya, one of the leading public universities of the east African country.  

These well selected books and materials, including 204 volumes of books, six boxes of cassettes, one box of video tapes and eight pieces of CD-ROMs, are mainly focused on Chinese language teaching.

Guo Chongli, Chinese ambassador to Kenya, said at the hand-over  ceremony that "efforts made for provision of qualified education by the new Kenyan government since it came into power one year ago are obvious to all and have won wide acclaims. The Chinese government also attaches great importance to developing education and lists that as a top priority in national policy. Meanwhile it values highly cooperation and exchanges with other countries in this field."

Kilemi Mwiria, Kenyan assistant minister for education, science and technology, said at the ceremony that the donation "is another evidence of continuous strong ties between our two countries, we really look forward to continuing that relationship with China. I'm sure that books you have donated will contribute greatly to strengthen these ties in that (Kenyan) young people who know Chinese will be our ambassadors."

Statistics show that in Kenya, more and more young people choose to pursue further study in China, 10-odd quotas of scholarship are given to Kenyan students annually by the Chinese government and over 30 Kenyan students are living and studying in China at present.

(Xinhua News Agency January 29, 2004)