Olympic Education

Olympic education is an important component of Beijing's Olympic preparations. BOCOG has formulated the Beijing 2008 Olympic Education Plan for Primary and High Schools in collaboration with the Chinese Ministry of Education. Olympic education will be carried out in more than 500,000 primary and high schools across the country. Olympic education course resources will be handed out to these schools, from which 500 Olympic education model schools will be chosen. A heart-to-heart partnership programme will be organized to link 200 plus schools with the 203 members of the International Olympic Committee. Students from these schools will learn about the languages, cultures and sports of their partner countries and regions. They will also participate in the flag-raising ceremonies for the sports delegations from these countries and regions during the 2008 Games.

BOCOG has compiled a Secondary School Olympic Reader and a Primary School Olympic Reader; and it has distributed nearly 800,000 copies to primary and high schools in Beijing and to the Games co-host cities. The editions of the book in traditional Chinese characters and in the Tibetan language were also published. About 60,000 copies were sent as gifts to students in the Hong Kong and Macau Special Administrative Regions and to students in the Tibet Autonomous Region. In 2005, an initial group of 20 schools were named "Beijing 2008 Olympic Education Model Schools" in Beijing.