Your Excellency Madame Callista Chapola,

Senior Government Officials present,

Mr. Matthews Matemba, Executive Director of Malawi National Examination Board,

Mr. Gospel Kazako, Managing Director of Zodiak Broadcasting Station,

Mr. Mathias Manyeka, General Manager of Zodiak Broadcasting Station,

Dear headmistresses, teachers and students of the three girls secondary schools present,

Press friends, Distinguished Guests,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Good morning. It is my great pleasure to attend the Best Girl Award Ceremony again. First of all, let me extend my warm congratulations to the three best girls who have got excellent results in the 2009 Malawi School Certificate Examinations (MSCE). My congratulations will also go to the headmistresses and teachers of the three girls secondary schools.

I am glad to know that Her Excellency Madame Callista Chapola is an alumna of Ludzi Girls Secondary School. The presence of Her Excellency today is a great encouragement to the students, and has shown again that H.E. Dr. Bingu wa Mutharika, President of the Republic of Malawi attaches great importance to the education of girls.

I shall also highly appreciate the great efforts made by Zodiak Broadcasting Station to promote the education of girls and gender equality in Malawi.

As a sincere friend, it is my pleasure to join Her Excellency Madame Callista Chapola and the Zodiak Broadcasting Station in this great cause. Actually, this is my second time to attend the Best Girl Award Ceremony. Last September, I promised here that we will provide Chinese Government Scholarships to the three best girls from three girls schools to study in China. Now I am happy to say that I have kept my words. Now, the three best girls are preparing for their trips to China. In the coming years, we will continue to provide Chinese Government Scholarships to the best students, and I sincerely hope that more and more Malawian Students will have the opportunities to study in China.

In fact, it is not easy for the Chinese Government to provide so many scholarships to oversea students. China is still a developing country with over 1.32 billion population. Our per capita GDP has just exceeded 3000 US dollars, ranking behind one hundred countries in the world. We still have over 135 million people living on less than one US dollar a day. In China, students have to study very hard to obtain opportunities to study in universities and colleges. As an Ambassador, my son has to go through a very fierce competition to get a Singapore Government Scholarship with a precondition that he has to serve in Singapore for 6 years after his graduation.

Therefore, I would like to challenge the three girls who will study in China to cherish this precious opportunity, discipline yourselves, study hard in China and come back to serve your nation and people wholeheartedly.

Your Excellency, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Education is widely recognized as the gateway for any individual to reach bright future. People born in the same village and same country may have different future due to their different education levels. Whoever completes his or her high level and quality education, he or she will be free to have the better future. We have no right to choose where to be born, but we have the rights to master our destiny and future, which are in our own hands. To catch our time now is to catch our own future.

Education is also one of the most important basic human rights. Everyone, regardless of gender, religion, ethnicity or economic status, is entitled to receive education. However, in most of the developing countries, due to the deep rooted biases towards women in the societies and families, many girls are deprived of the opportunities to receive equal education. If this situation is not going to be changed, the gender disparity in education will ultimately harm the social equality and progress, and then hinder the national development as well.

I absolutely agree with H.E. President Mutharika that education is the key to the development of human capital, which is the basis for the national economic development. One of the most important reasons behind the rapid and sustainable development of China is that the Chinese Government attaches great importance to education and most importantly, the Chinese people, rich or poor, from urban or rural areas, always put their children’s education as the top priority of the family.

Since 1986, the Chinese government has been implementing the policy of 9 years compulsory education. Now, in China, there are more than 20 million students studying in universities and colleges, and another over 20 million students studying in vocational training schools, which means every year there are about 11 million graduates from higher learning institutions in China. Well-educated and low-cost human resources have attracted millions of foreign investors to China, which has helped China create jobs, increase government revenue and foreign reserve and maintain rapid economic development.

I am glad to see that under the great leadership of H.E. President Mutharika, Malawian government has put education as one of the nine “priorities within priorities”, and has been implementing various measures to develop and facilitate the education, including rehabilitation of schools, construction of girls’ hostels and new teacher training colleges and so on.

Your Excellency, Ladies and Gentlemen,

As a sincere friend and a reliable development partner of Malawi, China strongly believes that it is more important to empower the Malawian people how to fish rather than to give you fish. With a view to helping Malawi strengthen capacity building and achieve self-sustainable national development, China has identified agriculture, education and human resources development, health and medical care and infrastructure development as four priorities in our cooperation with Malawi.

Since the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Malawi, China has granted Government Scholarships to 57 Malawian students. In the coming years, China will provide more new scholarships to Malawian students. Besides the scholarships, we have invited more than 300 professional personnel covering various fields including the headmasters and teachers of the Universities and schools to visit China either for seminars or technical training. We are ready to join H.E. President Mutharika in his great efforts to build the University of Science and Technology in the South of Malawi. The university, once built up, will help Malawi equip its national builders with latest science and technology for the self-sustainable development. Besides the university, we are about to construct a middle school in the south and planning to build a vocational technical training school in Lilongwe in the near future.

Your Excellency, Ladies and Gentlemen,

As a new friend and development partner of Malawi, I am so proud to say that the two years’ diplomatic relations have yielded so fruitful results, which are so visible and tangible. The Parliament Building Complex is about to be completed. The Five Star Hotel and International Conference Center and the Karonga-Chitipa Road have been under constructions. The Projects of the National Stadium and the University of Science and Technology will be commenced as schedule. And most importantly, the mutual understanding and mutual friendship between our two peoples and nations have been growing from nowhere to somewhere and getting more beneficial to our two peoples.

We highly appreciate the wise and timely decision made by the farsighted and visionary leader, H.E. President Mutharika of Malawi, to normalize the diplomatic relations between Malawi and China. We also highly appreciate and share the great philosophy of H.E. President Mutharika that LET THE WORK OF MY HANDS SPEAKS FOR ME. I would like to ensure you all that China has committed herself to joining the efforts of the Malawian government and people to fight against poverty for common prosperity and to promoting the friendly cooperative relationship between China and Malawi to a new stage and more beneficial to the peoples of our two countries.

Thank you for your attention.