The New Zealand Herald – Lincoln Tan
“Nearly half of Kiwis who want schoolchildren to learn a foreign language pick Chinese as the language to learn, according to a survey…Calls for an introduction of a national language policy in New Zealand were made more than 20 years ago, however there is still no national language policy and learning a foreign language is not compulsory in schools. Massey University associate professor Henry Chung, a specialist in China marketing, said not prioritising language learning could be detrimental to New Zealand. He believed that in a “modern globalised economy”, international languages — especially Chinese — were possibly the “most important” subjects students should be learning to ensure a better future. “Do not forget that there are more than 1.4 billion people, or a quarter of the world’s population, speaking this language, and the Chinese influence is increasing almost on a daily basis,” Professor Chung said. “To compete effectively in the Chinese markets, we need to understand its roots first and Chinese language is the first and most important step towards this understanding.”(more)