Young children are to learn Mandarin through a programme which is being extended to primary schools for the first time.
An extra 21 Confucius Classrooms are being created in Scotland to teach primary pupils Mandarin and boost their language skills.
The classrooms support Scotland's 1+2 languages policy, which aims to allow every child the opportunity to learn two languages in addition to their mother tongue by 2020.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon announced the expansion in Beijing while meeting 80 Scottish school pupils benefiting from a summer learning exchange programme in China.
She said: "We want our young people to be better prepared for life and work in a multi-cultural, global marketplace and Mandarin is one of the world's most widely spoken languages.
"Evidence shows that early language learning improves literacy and that young children learn languages more easily.
"Extending the Confucius Classroom learning programme to primary schools will improve language learning opportunities to more Scottish pupils, in addition to the 20,000 who already benefit.
"We now have this golden opportunity to make a difference in further improving how language skills are offered and delivered to our young people.
"I am determined to give all of our young people every opportunity to improve their language and literacy skills and raise attainment for every child in Scotland."
Currently over 200 schools and 20,000 school children across Scotland learn about China and its language.
This includes those who learn through the 14 Confucius Classrooms in secondary schools across 18 Scottish local authorities.
The Hanban, which promotes Chinese language and learning, will provide additional funding to extend the programme and will also offer Local Authorities help to partially fund an extra six Mandarin teaching posts across Scotland.
On the first day of her official visit to China, the First Minister also observed the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the University of Glasgow and Nankai University, one of China's top research universities.
The universities' Joint Graduate School, which will open its doors next month, is the first postgraduate higher education programme to be set up on a Chinese university campus in partnership with a UK institution.
She said: "This partnership between the University of Glasgow and Nankai University, the first of its kind in the UK, is fantastic recognition of the international standing of Scotland's university sector.
"Giving postgraduate students the opportunity to be taught by some of the leading academics in their field from both countries will provide a gateway to new sources of research and business opportunities."
Professor Anton Muscatelli, principal and vice-chancellor of the University of Glasgow, said: "This is one of the first ever joint graduate schools on a Chinese campus in partnership with a foreign university to be approved by the Ministry of Education in China and we will work hard to ensure that it delivers both economic and educational benefits to the postgraduates who attend in this and forthcoming years."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel