South African teachers dig heels in over Mandarin lessons being offered to nine-year-old students
Teachers' union leader claims: "We see it as the worst form of imperialism that is going to happen in Africa.”
A teachers union in South Africa has accused the government of surrendering to Chinese imperialism after it emerged that nine-year-olds are to be offered Mandarin lessons.
The Department of Basic Education said that from January 2016, Mandarin would be offered at grade 4 as an additional optional language along with German, Serbian, Italian, Latin, Portuguese, Spanish, Tamil, Telegu and Urdu.
The South African Democratic Teachers’ Union general secretary, Mugwena Maluleke, vowed earlier this year to oppose the teaching of Mandarin in schools.
“As much as during colonisation some people were complicit in selling our souls, that’s what’s happening [again now],”he said. “We’re going to make sure that we’ve got serious campaigns against this particular colonisation. We see it as the worst form of imperialism that is going to happen in Africa.”
When the Mail & Guardian newspaper on Tuesday showed Maluleke an official circular announcing that the “rollout of Mandarin [would] be incrementally implemented,” he told the paper: “This we’re going to oppose. In actual fact, tonight we’ll send an SMS to all our teachers to say you must reject it with the contempt it deserves.”
The government first announced plans for teaching Mandarin last year after the signing of various bilateral agreements between South Africa and China. It says Beijing is offering support in teacher training.
Maluleke said: “We’re not having a problem with the Chinese or their language. We have bilateral agreements with them and we’re in Brics. We have no problem with that. The issue is what’s in it for these officials and these politicians.”