"What we will see in next couple of years is that lots of Danish schoolchildren will learn Chinese," said Prof. Verner Worm, director of the Confucius Institute at Copenhagen Business School.

"This is about the fact that China is the world's second-largest economy. Young people who are 15 years old today will live in a world where they will have to deal with China. And its good to start by learning the language."

Niels Steensens has three Chinese teachers, and has offered students Chinese lessons over the past five years, with the language now a compulsory third language after Danish and English.

To date, over 485 of its students have taken officially certified Chinese language exams. The new partnership will mean more funding to directly improve Chinese teaching and closer academic links between universities.

Over time, through stronger relations with the RDFZ and by visiting China and living with Chinese families, Enger hoped her students would "learn about China in a deep and existential way."

Jobs

Denmark's Minister of Education Tina Nedergaard thinks "it is crucial for Danish students to compete globally," and to that end, they need "knowledge about China because it plays an important part on the global scene."

"When pupils get this acknowledgment and learn about China, they have something to provide Danish companies," she said.

A few leading Danish multinational companies have already had a strong presence in China.

Nedergaard dismisses the fear held by some that China's rise as a global economic power is a threat to Western jobs. "I believe that growth in any country helps in pulling up the rest of us," she said.

"China's impressive development has helped Europe to overcome a time of crisis," she said, referring to China's efforts to stabilize the world economy during the panic of the latest financial crisis which originated from the Wall Street.

"I know there are some forces around who may want to see it as a zero-sum game, but it's not."

Prof. Worm, who studied Chinese, philosophy and economy at Peking University in the mid-1970s, and has watched China's remarkable transformation in the past decades, agrees it is important to resist stereotyping the country.

Innovation

While it is clear that Danish students are benefiting, the impact on China is also palpable.

Wang Minzhu, a senior administrator of RDFZ, believes the Confucius Classrooms are helping Chinese students think differently about the world.

"Chinese students do feel very happy about the Confucius Classroom idea," she said, adding that "they are eager to learn about the world. We already have many partner schools all over the world, and now, we have the chance to learn about Denmark."

"Chinese culture has a long history but it is undergoing change," Du Xiangyun, director of the Confucius Institute at Aalborg University. "Many people from China have mentioned that Danish innovation and design are very unique. The Chinese could learn from that."

The links between elite educational institutions in Denmark and China have led to new knowledge about "education in the Chinese context," she said.