DEVELOPING GLOBAL COMPETENCE FOR A CHANGING WORLD: LEARNING CHINESE IN NEW YORK SCHOOLS

In today’s global knowledge economy, every student needs to graduate from high school college-ready and globally competent. This is not just good education policy, it is good economic policy. But education as usual will not produce graduates with the cross-cultural skills that will be needed to lead New York State into the future, according to a report issued by the New York Task Force on Chinese Language and Culture Initiatives, convened by China Institute and Asia Society, and comprised of business and education leaders across the state.

To prepare students for success in today’s global environment and to be competitive with other cities and states, New York must develop and implement a strategic plan to close the enormous gap between the growing interest in learning Chinese language and culture and the available opportunities in New York schools. Expanded opportunities for students to learn Chinese and other critical world languages will help to provide students the skills that will enable them to be leaders in New York, the nation, and the world.

Bearing in mind current budget constraints, but also aware that human capital will be critical to future prosperity, the Task Force has called on elected officials, educators, business and community leaders, parents and students to:

1) Create a state and city international education initiative, with an effective leader, to raise awareness of the importance of modernizing New York’s education system for the new global realities;
2) Develop a strategic plan or “roadmap” with specific goals for expanding the number of Chinese and other less commonly taught language programs around the state;
3) Recruit and prepare high quality Chinese language teachers, and
4) Expand cross-cultural collaborations between New York and Chinese-speaking regions.