Education Secretary Michael Gove has announced a new partnership with China, under which 1000 Mandarin teachers will be recruited and trained to teach Mandarin in secondary schools in England. Mr Gove launched the joint programme between the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust and Hanban (the Confucius Institute Headquarters) during a visit to China. It is to run over the next five years.
According to the Department for Education, Mandarin is an increasingly popular subject choice for GCSE, but there are only around 100 qualified Mandarin teachers in England at the moment, and only 16 per cent of secondary schools offered Chinese language teaching in 2009. The DfE hopes that the new partnership will increase the quality and quantity of Mandarin teaching in schools and allow more young people the chance to study the language: http://www.education.gov.uk/inthenews/inthenews/a0067040/mandarin-teaching-in-schools-to-benefit-from-new-uk-china-partnership.