UK targets 400,000 Mandarin speakers by 2020

World
Europe

An article in the UK's Financial Times newspaper is putting a spotlight on Chinese language learning in Britain.

The FT feature says an increasing number of people in Britain are starting to take an interest in Mandarin, suggesting the momentum is being driven – in part – by financial considerations, as China is one of the UK's main trading partners.

The British government hopes to have 400,000 students enrolled in Mandarin courses by 2020.

Chinese missions in the UK have also been working to try to expand Mandarin education.

File photo of students learning Chinese calligraphy during a China Day event at St. George's School in Hertfordshire, England /Xinhua Photo‍

Almost 30 Confucius Institutes and 148 Confucius classrooms have been established in the country, with 160,000 students registering to learn the Chinese language, according to statistics from the Education Department and the Chinese Embassy in London.

Many English public schools have begun offering Mandarin courses and 45 percent of the private school sector has also established a Mandarin education option.

Mandarin is an approved foreign language course in 86 primary schools and 37 secondary schools in Scotland. Students choosing to study Mandarin in Scotland now outnumber those who choose either the local dialect, Gaelic, or Italian, as their second language course.

There is also an increasing number of British students taking the HSK, a national standardized exam for testing the Mandarin language level of non-Chinese speakers. Some 6,237 British students signed up for HSK by July of this year, five times the number that signed up in 2011.

The British government launched its Mandarin Excellence Program in September, 2016, with 10 million pounds of funding.

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Source(s): China Plus ,People's Daily