Kenya Will Start Teaching Chinese To Elementary School Students From 2020 (qz.com)

Kenya will teach Mandarin in classrooms in a bid to improve job competitiveness and facilitate better trade and connection with China. From a report: The country's curriculum development institute (KICD) has said the design and scope of the mandarin syllabus have been completed and will be rolled out in 2020. Primary school pupils from grade four (aged 10) and onwards will be able to take the course, the head of the agency Julius Jwan told Xinhua news agency. Jwan said the language is being introduced given Mandarin's growing global rise, and the deepening political and economic connections between Kenya and China.

"The place of China in the world economy has also grown to be so strong that Kenya stands to benefit if its citizens can understand Mandarin," Jwan noted. Kenya follows in the footsteps of South Africa which began teaching the language in schools in 2014 and Uganda which is planning mandatory Mandarin lessons for high school students.

Comments

Learn Esperanto instead- China approved!

[Oswald McWeany]

The first step of many towards English losing it's place as the premier language in the world and the world's "second language". More countries will switch as China replaces US as biggest economic power. No surprise it's happening in Kenya as Africa is heavily invested in by China.

A better investment would be if the world adopted Esperanto; so much easier to learn than Mandarin. Based on European languages, so very easy for an English speaker to learn- especially since it was designed to be easy to learn (2 months to become low-level conversational)... and guess who else is a big believer in Esperanto? China. China already publishes all their official news in Mandarin AND Esperanto.

I bet if the EU committed to Esperanto as a universal second language, China would too- and the rest of the world would follow. Makes so much more sense than the world learning English or Mandarin, two of the hardest languages to learn as an adult.

Re:Learn Esperanto instead- China approved!

[Solandri]

The first step of many towards English losing it's place as the premier language in the world and the world's "second language". More countries will switch as China replaces US as biggest economic power.

That remains to be seen. GDP per capita basically measures how much productivity each citizen generates on average. The amount of inefficiency in a country's economy (due to corruption, lack of economic liquidity, and poor government policies) shows up as a lower GDP per capita.

The U.S. has a GDP per capita of nearly $60,000. Most EU nations are between $40k-$60k. Japan is around $40k. Ireland is around $70k due to its tax policies causing most foreign businesses to set up EU HQ there. Norway's is around $75k due to its oil exports. And Switzerland and Luxembourg are higher yet due to their heavy presence in banking. Likewise, the city-states (Macau, Singapore, Hong Kong, etc) are skewed high due to not having any low-income farmers in their stats.

Corruption or poor government policies limit the country's GDP per capita. South Korea and Taiwan's GDP per capita have stalled at around $25k-$30k for this reason. Despite both countries being capitalistic power houses, corruption and nepotism infest business practices there, and there's still a heavy stigma against women working (you cripple your productivity per capita when you discourage half of your able-bodied population from working).

Countries without a solid capitalistic base and with high corruption or poor government policies are usually mired at a GDP per capita of around $10k. Eastern Europe and much of Central and South America.

China is currently at $8k. If its Communist government and inherent corruption (you need to bribe people and officials to get any business done there) limits its GDP per capita to $10k, then the growth of its total GDP will stall at around $15 trillion. The U.S. and EU GDPs are already at $19 trillion each. So China would not surpass them in global economic influence. Even if China manages Taiwan-like levels of productivity (unlikely IMHO as long as its government remains Communist and insists on wasting capital on things like building empty cities), its total GDP would max out at around $35 trillion, giving it less economic influence than the U.S. and EU combined despite having twice the population.

No surprise it's happening in Kenya as Africa is heavily invested in by China.

China's heavy investment abroad has been fueled by its rapidly growing economy, which left it plenty of excess money to spend abroad. The signs are that growth is now slowing. (Sorry the bottom of the graph is 6%, not 0%. Every graphic I could find online did that.)

At a 6.5% growth rate, it will take 4 years for China's GDP per capita to hit $10k, 10 years to hit $15k, and 20 years to hit $20k. So we will know in the next 10-15 years whether the Chinese economy will continue growing, or if it will stall.

Re:Good idea

[alvinrod]

I wonder if in 20 years, Chinese people will be bitching about talking with "Yang" or "Li" in the call center when they know it's really someone from Kenya.

Re:Loss of influence.

[alvinrod]

The US and EU have sucked in our dealing with Africa, mostly realizing that the area is too hospitable to colonize, they just left it alone. Not realizing there is a population of workers being under under utilized, and can be supported to be stronger economies, which in turn create more customers.

I don't think it's that. Trying to get involved in Africa as a western company just gets a mountain of whinging twats complaining about colonialism on Twitter or other social media.

China doesn't give two fucks. They're rounding up religious minorities and sending them to reeducation camps. They won't care about international criticism from those former groups on Twitter either.

Good

[nospam007]

It's always a good idea to learn the language of the master class that bought your country.

Firefly called it

[zarmanto]

In the short-lived series, Firefly, Mandarin Chinese was a common second language. So... a good prediction, or life imitating art?

Re:Firefly called it

[zugmeister]

a good prediction, or life imitating art?

Third option: Firefly was just that awesome.

Makes sense

[Anonymous Coward]

Disclaimer: I'm an American who has been to Kenya recently.

For English not familiar with the national language (Swahili), you see some Swahili words in The Lion King (simba, rafiki, hakuna matata).
Everyone is multi-lingual. You start with your local/regional/tribe language (20-60 of them?). You then learn swahili when you go to school or travel. As you progress and want to start interacting with foreigners, you learn English. Kenya was a British colony in the early 20th century. The capital Nairobi was founded as an British railway town, and people learned English.

China just funded and operates the new Nairobi/Mombasa railroad that's key to getting goods to and from the shipyards in Mombasa inland to other parts of Africa through Nairobi.

    https://www.npr.org/2018/10/08/641625157/a-new-chinese-funded-railway-in-kenya-sparks-debt-trap-fears

New road construction has chinese-sounding names on the green tractors, not American Caterpillar or .Japanese Komatsu.
Kenya Airways has flights from China. I saw many Chinese tourists.
Managers of Chinese-owned operations would benefit from having more Kenyans know Chinese rather than possibly double-translating through English.
If you want to be successful working with the new Chinese money and management, it helps to speak Chinese, right?

Wake up western colonizers. China is learning from the IMF and World Bank of the last century.

Re:Makes sense

[rahvin112]

Wake up western colonizers. China is learning from the IMF and World Bank of the last century.

The Irony of this statement cannot be overlooked. China is engaged in the second wave of colonization of the third world. They are exporting millions of Chinese citizens to countries like Kenya as part of their Road and Belt initiative. The countries involved are tolerant of this just like they were the Europeans because the Chinese are paying off all the right people right now to keep this suppressed. At some point down the road the populace will figure out what's going on and it'll end up just like European colonialism.

What China is doing is just a reshoe of European Colonialism. The first thing the European colonizers did was build infrastructure funded by their own government. They also used the current Chinese practice of giving loans to the countries they couldn't afford and then seized the product afterwards.

You might think the Chinese would be smarter than the Europeans had been but they are just as racist and just as entitled and will abuse these undeveloped countries just like the Europeans did. If you supported these countries you would realize they are being abused.

Not switch, English is offical

[Actually, I do RTFA]

English is the (or a) official language of Kenya, Uganda and South Africa, the three countries mentioned in the summary. This is about adding Mandarin (as an elective) in schools, not replacing English.