The first-ever UNESCO award named after a Chinese figure, the
Confucius Literacy Prize, will debut this September in Qufu,
Confucius' hometown in eastern China's Shandong Province.
The prize, which was approved at a UNESCO Executive Board
conference last year in Paris, aims to award government bodies,
non-government organizations and individuals for outstanding
contributions in the area of universal education.
The Shandong provincial government and the municipal government
of Jining will offer 150,000 US dollars annually for the prize,
which was initiated by Chinese experts in 2001.
Confucius, who is revered in China as a legendary philosopher,
educator and politician in olden times, established Confucianism
and did much to spread his theories that are deemed a mainstay of
Chinese traditional culture.
(CRIEnglish.com July 24, 2006)
