Hong Kong trails rival Singapore in students' English skills

Every Saturday afternoon Cindy Tse takes her eight-year-old son to a private class near his school, where he joins other children for two hours under the guidance of an expatriate teacher.

"We want to increase his chances of listening and talking in English, as he goes to a Chinese-medium school," says the doting mother.

Many others like her spare no efforts in brushing up their children's language skills - and not just in English. Demand for Putonghua teachers is soaring as China's clout in the global economy increases.

Since 2009, the Education Bureau has delivered HK$10 million under a special grant to 47 schools to promote six languages other than Chinese and English - Urdu, Hindi, German, Japanese, French and Spanish.

About 15,000 people study French in Hong Kong in primary, secondary and tertiary education classes, with private tutors, at private centres or at the Alliance Francaise - a global institute promoting French language and culture. The French consul said last year that French had become Hong Kong's fourth language.

But while it has long been a key goal of the government to foster bilingualism in Hong Kong, the language skills of the city's young people have become a cause of significant concern.