THREE of Kearsney College’s learners wrote the Mandarin paper one in their final Matric IEB examinations, marking them as KwaZulu-Natal’s first non-Chinese learners to write the subject at this level.
Mandarin Chinese is part of Kearsney’s academic programme, offered in partnership with the Confucius Institute in Beijing.
The Confucius Institute has sponsored a Chinese teacher, Xu Dai, who has taken up residence at Kearsney where she taught Mandarin Chinese as a curriculum language, as well as Chinese culture.
ALSO READ: Tim is a multi-talented leader
The school’s headmaster, Elwyn van den Aardweg, said it was vital the boys were offered the opportunity to study Mandarin if they were to effectively operate and excel in a global economy.
Conversational Mandarin was initially introduced at the school in 2005 for members of the Kearsney choir who were travelling to Xiamen, China for the World Choir Games the following year.
At that stage, it was offered as an elective subject in Grade 8 and 9, before becoming a third-language option and full curriculum IEB matric examination subject five years ago.
Do you want to receive alerts regarding this and other Highway community news via WhatsApp? Send us a WhatsApp message (not an sms) with your name and surname (ONLY) to 060 532 5409.
You can also join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
PLEASE NOTE: If you have signed up for our news alerts you need to save the Highway Mail WhatsApp number as a contact to your phone, otherwise you will not receive our alerts.
