CHINESE children in Britain should find learning their mother tongue easier and more interesting following the development of new textbooks reflecting British rather than Hongkong teaching programmes.
Leading figures among the Chinese community got together with the Hongkong Government Office in 1991 to design a series of textbooks which reflected the fact that most ethnic Chinese children in the UK spoke English among themselves at home, and only received a fraction of the Chinese teaching of their Hongkong counterparts.
The books - put together by a committee of teachers - will be used to teach more than 13,000 local Chinese children attending weekend lessons in their mother tongue in some 120 classes held across Britain.
The teachers, who are preparing the children for General Certificate of Secondary Education examinations in Chinese, felt it was becoming increasingly difficult to teach children with the Hongkong textbooks normally provided through government channels.
Parents thought the contents of the books produced in the territory were not directly relevant to the lifestyles of their children.
The first edition of the series of 11 books will be distributed free of charge to all Chinese classes from the beginning of the academic year starting in September.