Cape Town - The Western Cape has the highest number of schools in the country offering Mandarin as an optional subject to pupils.
This month, in a written reply to a Parliamentary question from the DA’s Gavin Davis, Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga revealed that 43 schools across the country were offering Mandarin as an optional subject, 26 of which were in the Western Cape.
She previously stated that Mandarin was available to schools that wished to offer it “at an optional third language level”.
She said: “It will have no impact on our current compulsory curriculum in which it is mandatory to take two South African languages.”
According to her reply to Davis, Mandarin was being offered in the Western Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng and the Eastern Cape.
She said it was envisaged that 500 schools would offer Mandarin as an optional subject in the next five years.
Motshekga said two teachers had been brought from China to teach the subject. in South Africa this year. Their salaries were being paid by the Chinese government.
There was only one South African teacher qualified to teach Mandarin.
Motshekga indicated that 100 teachers would be trained to teach the language this year and 500 over a five-year period.
“One hundred teachers will be sent to China. The Institute of Global Chinese Language Teacher Education will offer a course to teachers in South Africa through a sponsorship. This programme will last for three weeks (June 26 to July 16).”
In a separate question to Motshekga, Davis asked whether her department had undertaken any empirical studies to ascertain the demand for Mandarin as a second additional language at schools.
She replied: “There are no studies conducted as yet, but the Department of Basic Education is working with the Chinese adviser to conduct a survey on the demand for Mandarin in schools.”
She also indicated that the participation selection of the 500 schools would be on a voluntary. basis. “Hence it is not envisaged that there will be refusal from schools to participate.”
In a statement last year, the SA Democratic Teachers Union said it would discourage its members from participating in the Mandarin teaching programme,and reiterated its stance that the introduction of Mandarin “is the re-colonisation of South Africa”.
The DA also called on Motshekga to call for a moratorium on the roll-out until there had been proper consultation in Parliament and with stakeholders in the education sector.
Last year,the Department of Basic Education also invited comment on its plan to incrementally introduce indigenous African languages at schools that had previously only offered English and Afrikaans to its pupils.
In terms of this plan, schools that previously offered only Afrikaans and English would be mandated to offer an African language from Grade 1 and to incrementally introduce it in the remaining grades until it was phased in at Grade 12 level in 2027.
In 2014, an African language pilot project was launched in Grade 1 classes at several schools across the country, including 10 in the Western Cape, which have continued with the project.
Cape Argus