Schools benefit from free-trade

Pictured left to right: Cherry, Mona, Susie, Jane, Jessie, Judy and Jessie.

Eight Mandarin Language Assistants (MLA) are taking up residence in NZ for the 2010 academic year to assist teaching and learning of Mandarin in NZ schools. The programme is an education product of the NZ-China Free Trade Agreement and the first of its kind to be sponsored by the MoE.

The Confucius Institute in Auckland and Chinese Language Foundation welcomed the Mandarin Language Assistants to NZ at a lunch last month.

Six of the young women are sponsored by the MoE and two are sponsored by the Confucius Institute in Auckland. They are being hosted by clusters of participating schools in Auckland, Rotorua and Wellington.

“Having both MoE, in China and NZ, supporting this initiative signals the growing importance being placed on Chinese language in our schools,” said Gillian Eadie, acting director of the Confucius Institute in Auckland.

“The rapid increase in numbers of schools recognising that young NZers need Mandarin language for future employment ensured that there was great interest in hosting these assistants.”