【明報專訊】The Incident

Ever since the "reform and opening up" (改革開放) began Chinese students have been learning English words in parrot fashion, reading up on grammar and practising the retroflex consonants (捲舌音) the American way.

Not everyone approves of such enthusiasm. For years some have blamed such a craze for English learning for the decline of the Chinese language and repeatedly demanded that the government right the wrong.

Now some mainland cities have made their moves. In October 2013 the Beijing municipal government proposed new rules governing the National Higher Education Entrance Examination (高考). Starting from 2016 English may make up just 100 points of students' total scores, down from 150 at the moment. Chinese, on the other hand, may carry 180 points instead of the present 150. Primary students will not have to learn English until they are in the fourth grade.

Other regions have proposed similar arrangements. Shandong (山東省) is studying whether to annul (取消) English listening tests in the National Examination, while rumour has it that Jiangsu (江蘇省) is going to exclude students' English examination results from their National Examination total scores.