LISBON, July 14 -- Around 500 Portuguese secondary school students from 21 schools will start to learn Mandarin Chinese in the coming three years, according to an agreement signed here on Tuesday.

The agreement was signed by Chinese Ambassador to Portugal Huang Songfu on behalf of the Confucius Institute Headquarters and Nuno Crato, Portuguese Minister of Education and Science.

Under the agreement, the teachers will come from Chinese side and they will count with the support from eight Portuguese institutes of higher education to teach secondary school students who opt to learn mandarin Chinese as a foreign language.

In his speech at the signing ceremony, Huang expressed his wish for a successful implementation of the teaching program, which he hopes will produce excellent Chinese language teachers for Portugal as well as other European countries to lay a solid foundation for the promotion of bilateral exchange and cooperation in such domains as politics, trade, education, science and technology, and culture.

For his part, Crato said that he hopes to see the program expanded to more schools in the following school year.