A Chinese education offcial said it was important to promote education of both Mandarin and ethnic languages among ethnic minorities.
Zhang Qiang is an offcial of the ethnic education department at the Ministry of Education.He said that Mandarin-learning programs are brought into many schools in the areas of ethnic minorities.
"We hope to help improve education of ethnic minorities," said Zhang.And he has been promoting bilingual education for nearly 20 years."But the Ministry of Education encourages ethnic minorities to learn their own ethnic languages well first."
China has 55 ethnic minorities and more than 50 languages are uesd.But some have written characters and others don't.About 6 million students are taking bilingual course at more than 10000 schools in China,and 21 ethnic languages are taught.
"We have never tried to weaken any ethnic language,"Zhang said."Every ethnic group has the right to use and develop its language.And students from ethnic minority groups are free to choose whether to take Mandarin courses or not."