The number of New Zealand school children learning Mandarin has plummeted, AM has revealed ahead of a visit by Chinese Premier Li Qiang.
New Zealand China Council executive director Alistair Crozier told AM the number of secondary school students studying the language has dropped by around a thousand compared to pre-COVID-19 numbers.
"There were still over 5000 secondary school students learning Chinese language last year, but that is down on a peak of over 6000 students prior to COVID," Crozier said.
One of the main reasons for the decrease was a lack of Mandarin language assistants [MLAs] entering the country, he said.
MLAs were introduced as part of New Zealand's Free Trade Deal with China, which was signed in 2008.
Master's students in China could travel to Aotearoa and assist Chinese language teachers. Initially 150 MLAs were approved, however the New Zealand Government wanted to bump this up to 300 by 2020.
Crozier didn't think geopolitics played a part in students deciding which language to study, suggesting popular culture may have a more significant influence.
"Other issues, such as perceived difficulty, perceived 'coolness' - there's a spike in Kiwi kids wanting to learn Korean because they're into the K-Pop scene," he said.
Crozier said it was largely a resourcing decision that influenced whether a school offered a language.
He hopes demand picks up as MLAs start to return to the country.
"The programme has not ended; it was just put on ice during the COVID period for reasons we all understand. So now we are back into more of a supply-demand equation where the numbers could go up again if the schools are ready to take them."
Li's visit to New Zealand is the first by a Chinese Premier since 2017.
He will be in the country from later this week, with trade, innovation and the Pacifc likely to be on the agenda.
Watch the interview above.
