On Feb. 24, media mogul Rupert Murdoch, head of News Corporation Ltd., announced at the annual meeting in Asia Society that his firm will invest heavily in Chinese cultural education in America. The investment project will be launched at the Shuang Wen School - PS184, located at 293 East Broadway in Chinatown.
Shuang Wen director Mu-Peng Li said that Murdoch and his wife, Wendy Deng, are both enthusiastic about Chinese-English bilingual education. “Murdoch will help to strengthen the new trend of Asian bilingual education in the United States, by using the clout of the influential media group,” said Li.
Murdoch gave a speech at the meeting, mentioning that Shuang Wen is an innovative and exciting school. The school has 311 students from around the world, who are learning Chinese and English together. The attendance rate at Shuang Wen is over 98 percent, and its academic performance rating out distances most public schools in New York City. According to Murdoch, the investment will help expand bilingual education beyond the eighth grade into high school.
Li stated that Shuang Wen has to fundraise up to $250,000 each year to maintain 13 after-school and summer language classes. Murdoch is going to provide financial support for three years. The investment will allow for the hiring of more teachers and the purchase of text books, which had been impossible previously.
Although Murdoch’s investment does not provide for a campus, which is an urgent necessity for Shuang Wen, Li points out that the school has one year to develop plans to build.
The investment plan originated at Murdoch’s firm. Shuang Wen, assistant to Murdoch, made the initial contact to request permission to visit the school. In January, Wendy Deng went to Shuang Wen and had a long conversation with Ling-Ling Chou, the school principal. Deng invited Chou to hand in a proposal outlining the needs of the school.
Chou said that one week after sending out of the proposal, they got a positive reply. Out of respect to Murdoch and his wife, the school did not reveal the news until the Asia Society meeting.
Murdoch said that the investment on Shuang Wen is just a start. The government should expand Chinese-English bilingual education to more primary and middle schools and every high school should teach Chinese. Chinese culture should be brought into the education system.
Murdoch said that in the United States there are one million students learning French, and France has a population of eight million. Meanwhile there are only four thousand students learning Chinese, and China has a population of 1.3 billion world wide.
“Close to 80 percent of high school students do not know who Mao Je-Dong is, and 25 percent of them do not know what ocean lies between China and America,” said Murdoch.
He added: “A lack of knowledge about Chinese culture will deeply affect future relations between these two countries. Given that Chinese culture is pervasive, educating Americans and new immigrants from mainland China on both Chinese culture and American history is a must.”
