Swire Chinese Language Foundation conference
Posted on: March 25th 2022School News
Today, MGS welcomed over 150 pupils from schools all over the UK where the language of Chinese is being taught as part of the curriculum for the first ever student conference of its kind for the Swire Chinese Language Foundation.
The event explored the history of the language and of China, and provided multiple opportunities for pupils to ask questions from the panel of experts.
The guest speakers included: Professor Kerry Brown, Director of the Lau Institute at Kings College London, Professor Yangwen Zheng, Professor of Chinese History at the University of Manchester and Cindy Yu, Broadcast Editor at The Spectator magazine.
The foundation aims to widen the learning of Mandarin Chinese in Britain, with 12 centres of excellence established across the country, teaching pupils from 4 to 18.
At the start of this academic year, over 20,000 pupils were being taught the language of Chinese, with 450 pupils planning to take GCSE or National 5 exams in 2022 and 85 pupils planning to take A level or Highers exams in 2022.
Currently, there are over 141 schools across England and Scotland which offer the language, and we are delighted that the first student conference was held here at MGS.
The values of the foundation are as follows: "We believe that it is imperative to have a substantial cadre of Mandarin Chinese linguists in the country for Britain, its institutions, businesses and people, to be able to engage effectively with their counterparts in China. To achieve this requires a long lead time and means starting to teach the language in schools, with children being able to see their way through to university studies and beyond.
"This can only be done effectively and on a large enough scale by bringing Mandarin Chinese into the mainstream of many of the country’s state schools and by making it accessible to allcomers. This is the Foundation’s core aim. In doing this, we have a consequent and secondary aim, which is to help the social mobility of schoolchildren from deprived backgrounds".
Thank you very much to everyone who attended the conference today: we hope you enjoyed the event and look forward to continue supporting this initiative in the future!
