Students from Tytherington School in the United Kingdom participate in a sporting event held by Beijing Language and Culture University on Tuesday. (WANG ZHENYAO/FOR CHINA DAILY) This year's summer camp of the Mandarin Excellence Program kicked off in Beijing last week, with the largest group of students from the United Kingdom visiting China since the program was launched in 2016. Nearly 1,200 British students from 61 secondary schools are visiting China for 11 days to participate in Chinese language courses and cultural activities.
Separate travel groups will visit different parts of the country, covering a total of 10 cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu in Sichuan province and Guangzhou in Guangdong province. The Mandarin Excellence Program, organized by the Chinese Ministry of Education's Center for Language Education and Cooperation and the British Council, includes an average eight hours of Chinese language learning each week during secondary school years in the UK, as well as a visit to China for students who are in their third year. Funded by the UK's Department of Education, the program has so far helped about 11,000 British students to improve their proficiency in the Chinese language, according to the organizers.
William Bridgett, a student from Tytherington School in Macclesfield, Cheshire, northwestern England, said one of the key reasons he joined the program was that it promised an opportunity to visit Beijing. When Bridgett started attending Mandarin c.
