Majority in China back teaching English; debate rages over move to scrap it

A proposal by a member of China's national advisory body to drop English as a core subject for primary and secondary school students has triggered a heated debate among experts and netizens with a majority of them favouring to retain it, saying it would make the country capable of competing with other nations.

English gradually gained prominence in largely Mandarin spoking country as schools and colleges made it compulsory since 2001 with a strong backing from the government.

Xu Jin, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPCC) which is holding its annual session here, has proposed that English should not be a core subject like Chinese and mathematics and more course hours should be given to improving students' skills in physical education, music and art.

Xu is a member of the Jiu San Society, one of China's eight non-Communist political parties permitted by the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC).

English and other foreign languages should also not be included as compulsory subjects for the national college entrance exam, he suggested, according to China Daily, one of the state-run English dailies.

While English takes up about 10 per cent of class hours, less than 10 per cent of university graduates use the language at work, he said.

Moreover, smart translation devices can offer sophisticated translation services and in the age of artificial intelligence, translators will be among the top 10 professions to be eliminated, Xu said.

His proposal has triggered a heated discussion on social media and the hashtag "removing English as a core subject for primary and secondary school students" had been read 120 million times on Sina Weibo, a microblogging site akin to Twitter in China, as of Sunday.

Some netizens agreed with his proposal, saying they had wasted too much time studying English at school and did not use it in their daily lives, while others said the idea is not in line with the country's pursuit of further openness and is unlikely to be endorsed by authorities.

Significantly, in an online poll conducted by the state-run China Youth Daily, more than 110,000 respondents opposed the proposal and said English should be taught early at schools to enable China to compete with other countries.

However, around 100,000 people supported the proposal, saying it would be better to spend more time learning Chinese language and culture.

Zhang Lianzhong, a professor at Beijing Foreign Studies University, said the Ministry of Education has made English a compulsory course from third grade in 2001.

The decision had proved to be a smart one as hundreds of millions of Chinese students have broadened their horizons and improved their cultural awareness and critical thinking ability through learning the language, Zhang said in an interview with Beijing News.

Xiong Bingqi, deputy head of the 21st Century Education Research Institute in Beijing, said the key is to reform China's exam-oriented education system so that English teaching will focus on improving students' language skills, not exam-taking ability.

Removing English as a core subject will only result in greater imbalances between urban and rural students in English proficiency as urban students will more likely resort to costly after-school training to learn the language, he added.