Days after the National People’s Congress asked for less time to be spent on learning English in school, China’s netizens are still in uproar, according to wionews.com.
Parents in particular are concerned that their children will be sidelined when it comes to academic and career prospects. A post on Weibo was quoted as reading: “It is very important to let students learn English from an early age. Most of the prominent academic journals in the world are in English. Can you simply rely on a translation tool to read them?”
The National People’s Congress would prefer more time is spent “increasing cultural confidence” and that reducing the time spent learning English would allow for this. However, the Ministry for Education, while confirming that It will promote traditional Chinese culture in schools, is – for the time being – committed to continuing to provide English lessons for the same amount of time it has been, which is estimated to be about 8% of the school day and only one-third of the time spent learning Chinese.
