Written questions, answers and statements

Mandarin Language: Teachers

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Question for Department for Education

UIN 38243, tabled on 24 May 2016

Question

Julie Cooper
Labour
Burnley
Commons

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many Mandarin language teachers are working in schools; and how many people are training to teach the Mandarin language.

Answer

Nick Gibb
Conservative
Bognor Regis and Littlehampton
Commons

Answered on

6 June 2016

The information requested is not collected by the Department.

Whilst we know from the annual School Workforce Census how many teachers are teaching Other Modern Foreign Languages in secondary schools, we cannot identify how many are teaching Mandarin.

Following the Chancellor’s announcement last September of a £10 million fund for Mandarin teaching in English schools, the Department is starting a Mandarin Excellence Programme in September 2016 with the aim of teaching Mandarin Chinese to a high level to at least 5,000 pupils by 2020. This programme will ensure that there is a sufficient number of teachers for these pupils.

Answered by

Department for Education
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