Passport to the future

Africans are realizing that if they really want to connect with China, nothing beats learning the lingo

Enthusiasm for learning Mandarin is taking hold in Africa as students, workers and businesspeople increasingly see the language as a ticket to academic, career and commercial success.

Reflecting that groundswell of interest, several countries are moving ahead with plans to include Chinese in their national curriculums or are thinking of doing so.

Nigerian students take part in Chinese Bridge - Chinese Proficiency Competition for Foreign College Students, in Lagos in March. Photos Provided to China Daily

Kenyan students in a Mandarin class at Chinese Language and Culture Institute in Nairobi.

The Department of Basic Education in South Africa issued a notice in March approving the listing of the subject, meaning that Mandarin will be an option for pupils in grades four to 12 as a nonofficial, second language from January. Other language options in the same category include German, Latin, Tamil and Urdu.

A spokeswoman for the department, Troy Martens, does not say how much the initiative will cost, but says the country will develop a Mandarin curriculum with the help of the Chinese government.

"South Africa is offering Mandarin as a second additional language. A memo has gone out to let schools know that it is available as an option. It is up to schools to decide whether they want to offer it. We are not going to impose it on anyone. The only way we are supporting it is by making it available through teachers and learning material."

The Chinese government is providing teachers and helping train South African teachers, she says, adding that it will provide between 100 and 200 teachers a year for the next five years, depending on demand.

"Mandarin is going to be offered in exactly the same way as the other additional languages; there are 15 of them. We are waiting for feedback from the provinces so we don't have physical numbers of how many schools will have it. But 12 schools in Guateng province (in which Johannesburg is located) will offer Mandarin from January," Martens says.

Public opinion on China's influence in the country is divided. A survey by the Pew Research Center in Washington last year found that 45 percent of respondents had a favorable image of China, but 40 percent did not. There was also a split over whether Chinese economic growth was good for the country, with 41 percent in favor of Beijing's influence.

Nevertheless, South Africa's leadership has embraced China. In December, President Jacob Zuma went to China, his second state visit to the country since 2010, and the two countries have signed agreements in areas including aviation, finance, manufacturing and nuclear energy.

In Zambia in September, Sydney Mushanga, the deputy minister of education, announced that the government was in the process of including Chinese in the national curriculum.

"The long-standing essential relations between Zambia and the People's Republic of China have, over the years, grown numerous business opportunities between our two great nations," he said.

"The growing demand for Chinese language in Zambia is therefore a natural need for better communication between the two peoples."

He made the remarks on International Confucius Institute Day, which celebrates the Chinese philosopher who is the namesake of the global network of institutes promoting China, its language and culture. Chinese will be one of three foreign languages to be taught in Zambian schools, in addition to French and Portuguese. Mushanga did not say when the change would take effect.

In June, China agreed to give a 30.8 billion Ugandan shillings ($9.2 million) grant to Uganda to enable Mandarin to be included in the education syllabus. Jessica Alupo, the education minister, said she presented the proposal to Beijing when she was there in May.

"The world economy is changing," Alupo says. "Chinese is one of the most spoken languages worldwide. Besides, China is one of the fastest-growing economies and (has) the largest population in the world. China's influence in global affairs is growing annually. Ugandans can't miss this opportunity."

Alupo also requested support for the country's National Curriculum Development Centre. Frank Olam, a ministry official, said Chinese would be taught in all secondary schools. In addition to training lecturers at Uganda's top university, Makerere, China has also offered to provide teachers, teaching materials and scholarships so Ugandans can learn the language in China. They would train others on their return.

However, plans to bring Chinese into classrooms, especially compulsorily, are not uniformly welcomed.

There are concerns in Zimbabwe that Chinese is being introduced at a time when indigenous languages are in danger of becoming obsolete and resources are scarce.

The draft legislation, which was announced in May, becomes effective once it receives cabinet approval and would make Chinese compulsory in all government schools. Other compulsory languages would be French, Portuguese and Swahili.

In Nigeria last year, the government of Lagos state said that five schools in the state would begin teaching pupils Chinese. The state's commissioner for education, Olayinka Oladunjoye, told media that the pilot program had started in 2013 in two grammar schools. Also in the state, Grace High School in the town of Gbagada has become the first private school in the country to teach Mandarin.

In September, the school's administrator, Tokunboh Edun, gave several reasons why Nigerians should learn the language, including the inroads China is making in the continent.

Edun, who was speaking at the launch of a Mandarin book for Yoruba speakers, said Europeans and Americans were learning Chinese because of the "giant strides" taken by the country in global business and international relations.

"Learning Mandarin has become a global trend that cannot be ignored by those who want to play an effective role in global business."

With the increasing ties between China and the world, Mandarin classes have become a popular option worldwide.

The UK government also believes that mastering the language will reap untold rewards. Last month Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne announced a 10 million pound ($15 million) program to get 5,000 children learning Mandarin at school. He unveiled the initiative during a five-day trade mission to China.

"This investment means we can give more young people the opportunity to learn a language that will help them succeed in our increasingly global economy," he said.

Education Secretary Nicky Morgan described the relationship between the two countries as vital to the UK's growing economy, which is why, she said, the government wants more children from all backgrounds to have the opportunity to learn Mandarin.

There were 3,099 Chinese A-level entries last year (compared with 10,328 for French and 8,694 for Spanish) and 3,710 Chinese entries for a General Certificate of Secondary Education, a subject-specific qualification (compared with 157,699 for French and 90,782 for Spanish). Pupils from fee-paying schools dominate Chinese A-Levels, comprising 74 percent of the cohort, and there is no information as to how many pupils studying Chinese at GCSE or A-Level are heritage speakers.

Nevertheless, the figures, from the Joint Council for Qualifications, show GCSE Chinese to be a popular "other" modern foreign language, with more entries than Russian, and it is the most popular "other" foreign language at A-Level. The UK is more active and enthusiastic in its promotion of the Chinese language than other European countries.

Germany has no such initiatives, even though China is the country's second-largest trading partner outside the European Union and after the US, with bilateral trade exceeding 150 billion euros ($167 billion) last year, and Chancellor Angela Merkel visiting China eight times since 2005. No other European leader has met the Chinese leadership as much as she has.

Chinese is the fifth most widely taught language in France; it was studied by 41,000 French secondary education students and 17,000 higher education students in 2013-14, France's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Development says.

Joel Bellassen, a professor of Chinese at the Institut National des Langues and Civilisations Orientales in Paris, told China Daily in January that 30 primary schools in France offer Chinese classes, where about 4,000 students are learning the language, and that more than 600 middle and high schools have set up Chinese classes. He also said there were more than 20,000 students studying Chinese at universities.

In Africa, Chinese, apart from being promoted in the formal education system, is seen by many people as a ticket to better career paths.

In Tanzania's economic capital, Dar es Salaam, a cultural promotion center was set up in 2012 that would give students the language skills to be able to attend universities in China. These courses, which students take in addition to their university studies, are also available to members of the public irrespective of whether they are studying Chinese elsewhere.

The head of the center, Charles Sanga, Tanzania's ambassador to Beijing from 2000 to 2006, sees it as a new channel to address the efforts from Africa in its ties with China.

Tanzanians are increasingly interested in China, and they realize that knowing at least a little of its language will help them to know more about it, he says. This is particularly so in the case of those wanting to do business with the country, he says.

Rong Yi, the center's director, says: "We receive many inquiries about doing business in China or studying there, but few of those who contact us understand Mandarin. That is obviously going to handicap them in China, so to those who can't go to university we offer introductory courses in Chinese."

The great bulk of local students studying overseas go to Western countries, Rong says, but that is slowly changing as more opt to go to China.

For local workers in Ethiopia, studying Mandarin opens up possibilities for working with the increasing number of Chinese companies in the country.

Ibrahim Kayimba, 34, a security guard, says: "I realized there are many Chinese doing business in Dar es Salaam, and I have heard the pay in Chinese companies is higher if you speak Chinese, which is why I go to the Tanzania-China Promotion Center.

In Kenya, Gao Wei, principal of the Chinese Language and Culture Institute in Nairobi and chief executive of China Information & Culture Communication (Kenya) Ltd, says the number of students is growing rapidly.

It now offers courses for high school graduates going to China, short-term classes for businesspeople going there, and classes for local companies such as banks and airlines that have business ties with the country.

One of the ultimate goals is to have Kenyans go to China, eventually being able to put what they have learned in the country to good use when they return to Kenya, he says.

Young people born in Kenya to Chinese parents will become an increasingly bigger market, he says.

"Compared with their parents they tend to be more multilingual but some have gaps in their understanding of real Chinese culture, and our courses can help them connect to that."

This will become an increasingly important way of preserving and promoting Chinese culture, he says.

Contact the writers through lilianxing@chinadaily.com.cn

( China Daily Africa Weekly 11/20/2015 page1)