Mandarin lessons for secondary school children have been spared Whitehall cuts after the Foreign Secretary raised concerns that stopping the scheme would pose a security risk, The i Paper can reveal.
The Mandarin Excellence Programme, which teaches the language to 8,000 pupils in schools across England, will have its funding renewed in August for a further year, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson is to announce.
It follows warnings by the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, David Lammy, MPs and peers that scrapping the scheme would damage the UK’s ability to do business with China, as well as cutting off a pipeline of fluent Mandarin speakers who could work for Britain’s diplomatic and security services.
The scheme was set up by David Cameron’s government in 2015 and had cost the government around £4.1m a year, with schools given £20,000 each to provide the lessons, delivered by University College London.
Its current four-year contract will expire in August. At the House of Lords international relations and defence committee last month, Lammy said having a pipeline of Mandarin speakers coming through the UK’s education system was a “fundamental part” of making sure Britain was “fit for purpose” to engage with China as a 21st-century superpower.
Baroness Coussins, a crossbench peer and chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on modern languages, raised concerns to the Foreign Secretary about the possible axeing of the Mandarin Excellence Programme, adding: “I hope you will make the views and the needs of the FCDO known to the DfE [Department for Education] before it makes a decision that would be a very backward-looking one if the Mandarin Excellence Programme were to be cut.”
Lammy replied: “With the huge challenges we have with global war and the huge pressures we have with competing superpowers, that means we have to be fit for purpose for today, not for yesterday or decades ago.
“That is what makes Mandarin hugely important to invest in at this time. I cannot emphasise that enough, and of course I emphasise it to my colleagues.”
Despite all Whitehall departments facing cuts as part of Rachel Reeves’ spending review next month, Phillipson has secured £2.4m in funding to keep the scheme running for another year, although some aspects have been scaled back.
As part of the programme’s “enrichment” activities, children learning Mandarin visit China, usually during Year 9, to help them with their language skills and learn more about the culture.
Under the rejigged programme, pupils will learn Mandarin for six hours a week, instead of the current eight, and funding will be cut for most students’ flights to China, as well as trips to Chinese restaurants and Chinatown.
Pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds on the scheme will still have their flights to the country paid for.
Coussins told The i Paper she was relieved to hear the funding has been renewed for another year, and that she hoped it would continue in the longer term.
“The scheme has been carefully monitored and evaluated and has been shown to be a beacon of excellence which really shows what British pupils can achieve in language learning when they have a well-funded, well supported programme of study,” she said.
“Language teaching more widely can learn a lot from the scheme, which has built its success over a number of years now. “
Coussins, who is co-chair of The All Party Parliamentary Group on Modern Languages, said she had met with a group of pupils and was “very impressed by their achievement and enjoyment of the language”.
She added: “Mandarin is much-needed in business, diplomacy and security.”
Katharine Carruthers, strategic director of the programme at UCL, said the programme is in its ninth year with more than 16,000 students having participated.
“By the end of the summer more than 4,000 students will have visited China and more than 4,000 students will have sat GCSEs achieving excellent grades,” she said.
“The programme impacts on students’ personal development in building confidence, resilience and critical thinking. It gives them a unique opportunity to experience another culture and to achieve excellence which would otherwise be out of reach.
“We are really proud to be able to continue to deliver this programme in partnership with the British Council and with schools across England.”
Insiders said renewing the scheme was part of the government’s wider efforts to boost the UK’s China engagement capability, and helping the UK to “manage the risks and opportunities of our relationship with China in the UK’s interest”.
This is in line with the Foreign Office’s ongoing China audit, which is examining how the UK should reset its relationship with Beijing.
This reset comes amid concerns over the security risk posed by China. This week former head of MI6 Sir Richard Dearlove told The i Paper that the use of Chinese technology in the UK’s wind farms, solar panels and electric cars could threaten national security.
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