Plans for Schools to offer Mandarin (UK)

February 4, 2007

Hi all,

Taken from:

Secondary schools in England will be allowed to teach Mandarin instead of EU

languages as part of proposals to update the curriculum. Ministers asked the

Qualifications and Curriculum Authority to review Key Stage 3 to focus on

essentials and make time for personalised learning. The resulting plan is to

be published in full for consultation on Monday.

At the moment schools have to teach a major EU language. The Education

Secretary, Alan Johnson, has said he believes it is right to vary this to

add languages which might be economically useful or help community cohesion.

So schools would be able to teach not just subjects like French, German and

Spanish, but Mandarin, Urdu and Arabic as well. " Young people need to be

aware that languages can make you attractive to employers - and more

employable, " he said. " We need to raise our game in languages in schools if

we are to compete in an increasingly globalised economy. " The change is in

line with proposals from Lord Dearing, who was asked to investigate the

collapse of language study in secondary schools that followed the

government's decision to make it optional after the age of 14.

Editor's comments: This will undoubtedly have a knock on effect to Chinese

medicine, for example:

1. A bigger interest in Chinese culture and medicine with a better

understanding of Chinese concepts.

2. More people becoming involved in Chinese medicine and enrolling into TCM

courses.

3. A larger source of people to translate Chinese medicine texts.

These are exiting times!

Regards,

Attilio

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