At last, after years of insistence by the qualifications authorities that the study of Chinese in UK schools should follow the same Modern Language format as, say, French, the DES recognises that Mandarin, as a World Language, should be introduced into British schools as early as 2008.
Up until now the development of Chinese Studies in the British classroom has been held back: the language was perceived to be just too difficult to master. In fact, even after a recent joint review by the British Council and the Chinese Ministry of Education, the current Chinese Language GCSE is just too hard, requiring a directly comparable level of Chinese language proficiency as that benchmarked by all other languages taught in secondary schools. This never made sense. CMC have long campaigned for the inception of a Chinese Studies GCSE comprising both language and general China knowledge components. And getting a decent grade should be no more difficult or easier than getting a decent grade in any other subject.
Somehere the penny has dropped and the result should certainly improve the long term prospects for a more sustainable relationship between Britain and China.
New word of the day: 'the Chinese language', in Chinese pinyin, is 'Zhongwen', pronounced 'jhungwun'.