China disclosed\u00a0a plan Monday to increase the number of citizens speaking Mandarin to 80 percent by 2020.<\/p>\n
BY JASON LE MIERE
\n4\/4\/17 AT 3:53 PM<\/p>\n
China disclosed a plan Monday to increase the number of citizens speaking Mandarin to 80 percent by 2020. The figure represents a sharp rise from the current figure, estimated by the government to be around 70 percent, which leaves several hundred million people speaking other dialects.<\/p>\n
The plan, issued by China\u2019s Ministry of Education and State Language Commission, specifically called for improved speaking abilities among teachers. It sets out guidelines for training teachers from ethnic minority regions, with all new teachers having to meet Mandarin speaking standards before being granted a job.<\/p>\n
A statement from the State Council<\/a> said there was still \u201ca huge gap\u201d between different regions and groups of people. While the rate of people speaking Mandarin exceeded 90 percent in large cities, the figure dropped as low as 40 percent in a number of rural areas.<\/p>\n Mandarin is by far the world’s most widely spoken language, with close to a billion native speakers. However, China\u2019s Education Ministry said<\/a> in 2013 there were about 400 million people in the country of around 1.3 billion who could not speak the national language.<\/p>\n The goal of dramatically increasing that figure promises to be far from straightforward. Several thousand Tibetan students across China took to the streets to protest in 2010<\/a> after an order was passed that all elementary school lessons and textbooks should be in Mandarin Chinese by 2015.<\/p>\n