More than 5000 children to learn Mandarin as part of £10m scheme to make Britain more competitive globally.

• Students will intensively study the language for eight hours per week
• Mandarin excellence programme is designed to make them fluent by 2020
• It will initially be launched in 15 secondaries before being rolled out

More than 5,000 state secondary school pupils will learn Mandarin in a £10million government scheme.Students in England will intensively study the language for eight hours a week over the next four years.The Mandarin excellence programme – designed to make teenagers fluent by 2020 – will initially be launched in 15 secondaries before being rolled out.The Department for Education initiative is supported by the UCL Institute of Education, in partnership with the British Council. School Standards Minister Nick Gibb said: ‘A high level of fluency in Mandarin Chinese will become increasingly important in our globally competitive economy. As part of our drive to extend opportunity, we want to give young people the opportunity to study the language and to acquire fluency in both spoken and written Mandarin.