For the first time in Thailand's educational history, a newly
founded local international school decides to give the Chinese
language a priority instead of the usual entire English curriculum.
"The quick rise of China means Chinese is the future," school
founder Varnee Ross explained this unprecedented move to the local
media. As a member of a top local business family, she knows very
well that in Southeast Asia, Chinese is now the right language to
learn.
Like Ross, more and more people in this region become aware of the
increasing importance of the Chinese language. The growing demand
for Chinese textbooks and teachers can be felt in Bangkok, Manila,
Jakarta or other major spots in Southeast Asia. Meanwhile here are
over 50,000 Southeast Asian students studying Chinese in China's
various universities, and the number is expected to grow by 10
percent annually.
Analysts said Southeast Asia, which accommodates the majority of
overseas Chinese and has a centuries-old history of
Chinese-language education, is well posed to embrace a new round of
Chinese-language boom.
In
1690,Indonesian Chinese founded the region's first Chinese school.
Since then Southeast Asia's Chinese education have managed to
survive and keep growing despite many rises and falls, mainly due
to the local Chinese people's unremitting efforts to keep their
ethnic identity and cultural heritage. And today, the local Chinese
community is still the major driving force for a new boom of
Chinese education.
To
date, Southeast Asia has established a complete private Chinese
education system comprising over one million researchers, teachers
and students in over 2,600 institutes ranging from kindergarten to
university.
Chinese communities in Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines,
Singapore and Cambodia have set up core organizations to give
guidance and pool financial support for the Chinese-language
teaching sector in their countries. Those bodies, like the
Association of Chinese Private Schools of Thailand or the
Philippine Chinese Language School Research Center, are also
organizing cultural fairs or composition competition to promote
local use of the language.
Meanwhile, the rise of local Chinese-language media, including
newspapers, magazines, radio, TV stations, and most recently,
websites, is reinforcing the course of protecting the rights of the
Chinese language education and promoting high-level Chinese
culture.
Analysts said a major distinction for the current "Chinese Boom" is
that the promotion of Chinese language is, for the first time in
history, getting strong attention and support from Southeast Asian
governments, which have already began to integrate Chinese-teaching
into national educational policies.
"China is certain to play an important role in world economy, so
Chinese will be a major foreign language for Thais to learn," said
Thai Prime Minister Thaksin
Shinawatra during his official visit to China earlier this
year. The premier is also asking for the Chinese government to give
assistance to Thailand's Chinese education sector.
He
was echoed by former Philippine education minister Andrew Gonzales,
who said as China is becoming a major economic powerhouse, people
who can speak Chinese will be an "important force in the 21st
century."
A
senior Malaysian politician also said Malaysians will be benefited
from learning Chinese, because it will help to enhance business
links with the emerging giant.
Since the late 1990s,the governments of Thailand, Malaysia,
Singapore, the Philippines, Cambodia and Laos have adopted a series
of measures to ease restrictions on Chinese language education and
encourage Chinese-learning. They also permitted the language to
enter the curriculum of public schools and national universities,
which means all their citizens, not only ethnic Chinese, are now
able to access the knowledge of Chinese language.
Nowadays, the intra-regional cooperation on Chinese language
education is making headway. China and the Association of Southeast
Asian Nations (ASEAN) have agreed to jointly promote the Chinese
education in the region as part of their expanding cooperation in
the field of human resource development.
Since 1992,Chinese-language experts from all Southeast Asian
countries, China and other Asian countries have been holding a
biennial conference regularly to exchange information and best
practices, and jointly explore the reform of Chinese teaching.
The advent of information era also brings technical changes to
Southeast Asia's Chinese-language education, broadening its scale
and space. The first global meeting on information technology in
Chinese-learning was held last June in Singapore, coming out with
the new concept of Globalized Chinese Curriculum in
Chinese-teaching. Malaysia and Thailand have already started their
remote-learning projects for Chinese language.
Despite the new boom, some people cautioned that due to limited
human resources, insufficient funding and a lack of consistency in
educational system, Southeast Asia's Chinese education is expected
to face certain challenges. However, analysts said with a sound
foundation and enormous opportunities brought by closer ties with
emerging China, the language is set to have a much better future in
the region.
(eastday.com December 18,
2001)