Kenyan students get Mandarin option

Kenyans in China and former envoy welcome move to teach Chinese

Ties between Kenya and China are expected to get a big boost as Kenyan officials say public school students will be offered optional Chinese-language classes in 2017, starting with those entering the first years of primary and secondary school.

The move comes as authorities update the curriculum and improve it to better serve their youth and the nation.

Reaction to the new educational offering has been predominantly positive. That is especially so among Kenyans studying or trading in China, who say they very clearly see the advantage it can give to new generations of Kenyans.

John Tarus, a doctoral student at the Beijing Institute of Technology, welcomed the move, saying language is a tool of communication and trade.

"It is no longer a secret that China is an emerging economic superpower. Those who understand the changing times will agree that those with knowledge of basic Chinese language would have a competitive advantage in engagement with China as an international trading partner."

Another Kenyan student in Beijing, Joyce Aporsh, says: "I see it as an extra skill. The only way some people are able to trade now is because of learning the Chinese language. Some Chinese people really suffer due to their inability to speak English."

The youngest pupils to be offered Chinese classes will be those in Standard One, the first primary year, who are usually about 6 or 7 years of age and are just out of nursery school.

The news came from the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development. Julius Jwan, the director of the institute, says all Form One students - in their first year of secondary school, which would be ninth grade - will also be offered Mandarin classes starting in 2017.

Those two groups of students would be able to continue their Chinese studies in subsequent grades, leading to the addition of new levels every year until the language would be available for students in all years of study.

Jwan defends the introduction of Chinese, saying it is long overdue. "Chinese is one of the six United Nations languages with English, Spanish, French, Arabic, and Russian. Only Russian and Chinese are not taught in Kenya," he says in a report in The Standard.

Jwan says the Kenya National Examinations Council together with experts from China would oversee certification of students in the language. The council has received a lot of support from the Chinese Embassy in Nairobi as well as Confucius Institutes such as the one at the University of Nairobi.

Wu Shengzheng, director at the Confucius Institute at Kenyatta University says his institute is working in partnership with the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development in designing curricula.

Li Yuan, director of the Confucius Institute at Egerton University, welcomed the move. "This is great development that will further promote the cultural exchanges between the two countries and lead to high demand for Chinese language teachers," he says.

The announcement did generate some comments, including objections. Kenya, which won its independence from Britain in 1963 after a long struggle and guerrilla war that started in the 1940s, can be sensitive to foreign influences.

A headline in the Mwakilishi online newsletter read: "Don't panic, learning of Chinese in Kenyan schools will be optional - official".

An online commenter named Menelik wrote that more emphasis should be put on Swahili studies instead. "Most Kenyans cannot even speak the national language properly. Now they want to learn Chinese. Charity begins at home."

But many Kenyans, including almost all those working or studying in China, say the study of foreign languages, increasingly including Mandarin, is important for Kenya if the nation is not to be left behind.

"The Chinese language is gradually taking its place by being taught in primary schools across the world. It is now in the pipeline of several African countries," says a Kenyan student in Beijing who identified herself as Ms Christian. She says that China is in the process of establishing banks to rival the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

Louise Wangari, a Kenyan trader in Chongqing in southwestern China, strongly welcomed the move, saying language is a tool that makes communication easier and that it would promote relations between China and Kenya.

"When people do not understand each other's language when trading, then they look for people to be a bridge. That's why we have translators. Language is part of culture and not the other way round. Knowledge of Chinese language will help Kenyans more than the Chinese," she says.

Former Kenyan ambassador to China Julius Sunkuli says introducing Mandarin will promote further bilateral trade between China and Kenya. Sunkuli was speaking in Nairobi on national radio.

"The Chinese are more than 1.4 billion in population. It is therefore imperative that knowledge of it would help in many ways."

Sunkuli also says that many businesspeople from Kenya go to the city of Guangzhou in South China for business and it would be easier for them to trade if they had knowledge of the Chinese language.

For China Daily

(China Daily Africa Weekly 05/15/2015 page3)