English Please

The Chinese capital is starting a campaign demanding that its residents learn to speak at least a few sentences of English.

The drive demonstrates the dramatic changes that China has undergone in the past few decades and how its focus in world affairs has shifted.

In the 1950s, schoolchildren had to learn Russian to get ahead, while in the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s, it was safer to speak no foreign language at all rather than risk retribution under Chairman Mao's rule.

Now the authorities in Beijing want to transform the capital into a "world city" - one with the international prestige of London, Paris, New York or Tokyo.

An ability to communicate with foreign visitors is regarded as a crucial step on the path to gaining such status.

All kindergartens will start English courses for their toddlers. That is expected to give them a head start for the English language classes encouraged, and often enforced, at almost every primary and middle school in China. Every Beijing public servant under the age of 40 who has a university degree will have to master a minimum of 1000 English sentences.

Every government employee, whatever their level of education, will have to be able to speak 100 sentences of English by 2015.

A minimum of 60 per cent of shop assistants, waiters, receptionists, beauticians and hairdressers under 40 will have to pass an English test in their field of expertise.

Within five years, five guides in every museum at central-government level and three in each municipal museum must pass an English proficiency test.

Before the Olympics, taxi drivers had to sit a test in basic English to renew their licences.

The Times