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Sunday, November 24, 2024
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Kenya will start teaching Chinese to elementary school students from 2020

Kenya will start teaching Chinese to elementary school students from 2020Kenya will teach Mandarin in classroomsย  in a bid to improve job competitiveness and facilitate better trade and connection with China.

The countryโ€™s curriculum development institute (KICD) has said the design and scope of the mandarin syllabus have been completed and will be rolled in out in 2020. Primary school pupils from grade four (aged 10) and onwards will be able to take the course, the head of the agency Julius Jwanย told Xinhuaย news agency. Jwan said the language is being introduced given Mandarinโ€™s growing global rise, and the deepening political and economic connections between Kenya and China.

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โ€œThe place of China in the world economy has also grown to be so strong that Kenya stands to benefit if its citizens can understand Mandarin,โ€ Jwan noted. Kenya follows in the footsteps ofย South Africawhich began teaching the language in schools in 2014 andย Ugandaย which is planningย mandatory Mandarin lessonsย for high school students.

Kenya is currently in the midst of rolling out a new educational curriculum toย improve educational qualityย andย focus on skillsย that would make graduates more employable in the labor market. Just last year, education officialsย rolled outย the roadmap for the first pilot of the new curricula for students in pre-school and standards one and two.

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Then education secretary Fred Matiangโ€™i said the syllabus would be tested in order to see what to improve before they are fully implemented across all primary and secondary classes. Mandarin is set to be taught alongsideย local languagesย besides other foreign ones including French and Arabic.

As officials in Nairobi deliberated introducing the language in schools, they received support from Beijing over the past few years. A delegation of Chinese scholarsย helped with developingย the courses, while scholarships were doled out to Kenyan graduate students to study in Chinese universities.

The beneficence is strategic for China, which hasย lent billionsย of dollars to Kenya,ย built a railwayย between its two major cities, heldย major cultural festivalsย in the east African state, and whose companies are involved in constructing everything from highways to apartments. Long before theirย prevalence across Africa, China set upย Africaโ€™s first Confucius Instituteย at the University of Nairobi.ย 

Byย Abdi Latif Dahir

qz.com

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