Richard Cairns was the focus of attention last year when he became headmaster of Brighton College and announced that all pupils joining the senior school at 13 would study Mandarin.

Now he’s so delighted by the way his students have taken to this famously challenging language that he is putting it on the timetable for everyone. From September, three-year-olds starting in the nursery will find that Mandarin is mandatory. They will have at least one lesson a week until they leave the sixth form, even if they don’t take exams in the subject.

Brighton College is believed to be the first school in the country to make Mandarin compulsory for all pupils. It is in the vanguard of a mini boom in a subject that its champions believe must become a key language on the curriculum everywhere.

“Mandarin is a tonal language and children find that much easier when they are younger,” says Cairns. “The Mandarin teachers have said that if they had them when they were three, four, five, they could get them speaking fluently.” The school is to employ an extra Chinese teacher and an assistant, bringing the Chinese staff to four.

About 4,000 students nationwide sat GCSE Mandarin or Cantonese last year. However, it is understoood that many were ethnic Chinese. Last week Alan Johnson said that he was planning to accept the proposals of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) that pupils aged 11 to 14 should no longer be compelled to study a European language but could choose other world languages such as Mandarin or Urdu.

Brighton College is working closely with Kingsford Community School. They are planning a work-experience scheme in China for 16-year-olds and HSBC bank is funding a scholarship that, initially, will send two Kingsford pupils into the Brighton College sixth form to take their A levels and study Mandarin.

At Brighton College Mandarin has proved popular with the pupils and parents, says Cairns. “What the pupils like is that it’s so different. When you are younger it is quite exciting. Some of the kids who don’t like French and German love Chinese. They like the pictorial element.”

Cairns believes it is crucial that students learn the language and culture of “the emerging giant in the East”. If children have a command of only 1,000 words “it will open doors. I want everyone to have that benefit. The world doesn’t come to us any more; we have to go to the world”. He says that many heads have told him he was being “ridiculous” because Chinese was “too difficult”. But one of those who shares his enthusiasm is Dr Anthony Seldon, the biographer of Tony Blair and his predecessor at Brighton, who is now Master of Wellington College. Seldon plans to make it compulsory for all students to study a nonEuropean language, such as Mandarin, Arabic or an Indian language.

Head teachers complain that GCSE and A-level Mandarin are geared to native speakers and that it is almost impossible for a nonChinese pupil to gain an A*. With schools anxious to keep their average exam scores up, the difficulty of achieving good grades in Mandarin could deter them from offering it. “Schools are intransigent and inflexible and risk-averse,” says Seldon. He wants the exam boards to introduce a two-tier system that would provide one exam for native speakers and another for those new to the language.

A spokesman for the QCA said that this could happen, but “there would have to be a significant increase in the number of people taking Chinese to make it viable”.

The consequence of failing to embrace Mandarin will be severe, according to Seldon. “We are trying to prepare people for the world they are going to live in. It is going to be more difficult for us to compete. Those individuals who are able to converse in the language will have enhanced job opportunities. Those countries that hide away will go into decline more rapidly.”

The rise of Mandarin could be bad news for other languages. Cairns expects German to disappear at his school. He has few regrets. “It’s a bit mad that we have an education system that is preparing children for the 1970s and ’80s.”

Seldon says there is no shortage of Chinese teachers, but the quality is variable. The long-term plan must be for 20 per cent of a hugely expanded number of Mandarin graduates in Britain to become teachers.

He has no plans to repeat a previous experiment when he taught AS-level philosophy to pupils and sat the exam alongside them. He did less well than most of his pupils and is not trying to tackle Mandarin himself. “I am old enough to know when it is wise to admit defeat.”

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