Leaders of the English Schools Foundation are considering making Chinese language a compulsory subject at the secondary level after rolling out daily lessons across all primary schools.
Daily Putonghua classes for all students from Year Four to Year Six were introduced across ESF primary schools last year following successful pilot programmes in three schools.
'We are looking at secondary at the moment,' ESF chief executive Heather Du Quesnay said yesterday. 'There is a debate going on ... I think that will be very much a decision that will be made at school level.
'We are trying to get the balance right. We have got to be respectful of the fact that we are in China and that people living here will need to speak the local language. If they want to make a career in Asia they will need Putonghua at the functional level.
'We are determined to make that available to those who want it. But we are trying to build in a capacity at secondary schools for children who are not interested in Chinese or who are not able to learn it.'
An ESF spokesman said compulsory daily Putonghua classes would be extended to students in Year Two and Year Three at the pilot primary schools, which included Kowloon Junior and Beacon Hill, in the next school year.