Schools should teach children Mandarin as a key language option in the way they currently offer French or German, Boris Johnson said today.
The Mayor suggested that learning the Chinese language while young would help give pupils a competitive advantage.
He wants Mandarin offered as a mainstream subject on the national curriculum so children grow up able to plug into the Asian giant’s culture — and businesses. Mr Johnson, who revealed he is learning the language himself, said: “I certainly think that it would be a good thing if it was more widely available. We wouldn’t really be exploiting our relationship with China to the full until children were taking it up in a much bigger way.
“We’re going to need our kids to know Mandarin on a much more frequent and regular basis.”
However, the Mayor has previously suggested teaching Mandarin in schools was not a priority.
“We do not need to teach our babies Mandarin” and “China will not dominate the globe”, he wrote in The Telegraph in 2005.
But he admitted today that he had misjudged the extent to which China would expand its global influence.
“On Mandarin… that was certainly wrong. My kids are learning Mandarin. Some of the things I wrote 10 years ago don’t look entirely accurate now,” he said.
“Generally the study of modern languages in our schools is very sadly neglected. If you look at what’s happening to French and German they have both been declining. Mandarin seems to be the classic example of one that needs to be accelerated.”
Mr Johnson, arriving in Shanghai today during his trade mission to China, denied he had missed a trick by only visiting China five years into his mayoralty.
He also denied any regrets about shutting down former mayor Ken Livingstone’s overseas trade office and said: “We’ve been able to get stupendous amounts of Chinese investment into London.”