Dr Koh Hock Kiat, award recipient of 2011 Confucius Institute Individual Performance Excellence Award

The 6^th Confucius Institute Conference was hosted by Headquarters of Confucius Institute at National Centre for the Performing Arts between 12^th to 14^th December 2011. Mr Li Changchun, member of the Politburo Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China, addressed the opening ceremony, and presented awards to recipients for Confucius Institute Individual Performance Excellence Award and Outstanding Contribution Award.

Confucius Institute-NTU (CI-NTU) was named “Confucius Institute of the Year” in 2010. This year, Dr Koh Hock Kiat was presented the “Confucius Institute Individual Excellence Award”. This award was competed against 358 Confucius Institutes and 500 Confucius Classrooms which these institutes had come up with. This year, a total of 10 directors have achieved this recognition.

Confucius Institute Conference affirmed the prominent contributions made by Dr Koh Hock Kiat in his post as full-time Director of CI-NTU. He popularized learning opportunities and the propagation of Chinese language and culture, using his rationale of diverse symbiotic and harmonius working environment. Dr Koh strived and built up a competent market development team of 100 full and part-time Chinese language teachers, employing strict criteria in the selection process. Adopting quality education as the tenet of the Institute, courses were not only supplied to primary, secondary and university students, but also implemented in trainings and events in line with Chinese language and culture for Singaporean government officials, senior corporate executives and local communities. In 2011, enrollment at Confucius Institute had reached nearly 2000. He led his market development team in developing teaching resources such as Business Chinese Today, Top Chinese Enrichment Programme (Primary) Series and In Class with Confucius (Comic).

As the director of Confucius Institute, Dr Koh played an important role in the finance and administrative management. He explored multiple opportunities of managing financial status, strengthening market development and self-development of the Institute. In 2007, Dr Koh built up two strong pillars of financial system, namely Nanyang Technological University Confucius Fund (CI-NTU Fund) and Lien Shih Sheng Youth Chinese Literature Fund. The diversity of the two funds mentioned accumulated to a sum of 200 million U.S. dollars, ensuring a sustainable development for the Institute.

In his message of thanks during the award presentation, Dr Koh said, “It may take ten years for trees to be fully grown, but it takes even longer to shape a character. Culture education is a great undertaking for many centuries in shaping a character. Winning this award is an encouragement, which as if a bright light that shines through the future journey. I am thankful for the opportunity that was given to me in this juncture, that I have the ability to promote Chinese language and culture. I will continue to uphold my professionalism in what I have been doing and strive on even if I will be facing tougher challenges ahead.”