On November 13-18, 2025, Yu Jiaziyu, a third-year student of School of Computer Science and Engineering, MUST, won the first prize in the final of the 30th "21st Century Cup" National English Speaking Competition held in Hangzhou. This is also the 18th consecutive year that students from MUST have advanced to the final and won awards.
Group photo (from left Assistant Prof. Lei Kai Cheong, Yu Jiaziyu)
The "21st Century Cup" National English Speaking Competition was founded by China Daily in 1996. As the English learning competition with the highest academic specifications and the most rigorous organization in China, the competition has always received strong support and high attention from international authoritative English teaching institutions and education-related departments. First-class experts from famous international English teaching organizations, the press, foreign embassies and consulates in China, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and famous domestic and foreign universities are invited to participate in the judging work of the final. More than one million people participate in and observe the competition. The official website of the competition and many well-known domestic news media report on the competition in detail.
Yu Jiaziyu
This year's competition was launched in March 2025 and lasted for seven months. The contestants cover colleges and universities across the country. After layers of selection from campus competitions or regional preliminaries, semi-finals, and finals, outstanding contestants were selected from nearly 100,000 college students from about 1,000 higher education institutions in various regions across the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan to compete on the same stage in the final.
This final competition spanned 6 days, covered multiple sessions, and took prepared speeches, impromptu speeches, and on-site Q&A as its core segments-combining professionalism with on-the-spot challenges. Representing Macao, Yu Jiaziyu delivered unique and persuasive viewpoints on various topics with fluent English, an elegant stage presence, quick thinking, and strong organizational skills. She demonstrated excellent comprehensive language ability, cross-cultural communication skills, and critical thinking skills, ultimately standing out and winning the first prize. At the same time, Dr. Lei Kai Cheong, assistant professor of the University International College of MUST, as her tutor, also received the prestigious honor of the first prize for the Best Tutor Award.
