Last updated at 17:53 19 February 2007

A public school has become the first in the country to introduce Mandarin as a compulsory subject for three-year-olds, it emerged yesterday.

Brighton College already requires older children to learn the language in recognition of China's importance as the world's fastest-growing economy.

Now youngsters joining nursery at the school in September will be taught Mandarin, the country's official language.

Education Secretary Alan Johnson announced this month that secondary schools will be allowed to drop French and German in favour of "world languages" such as Mandarin and Urdu.

However fee-paying Brighton College believes children need to start learning Mandarin from a much younger age.

The school is believed to be the first in the country to make the language compulsory for three-year-olds, a year after it announced that pupils in the senior school would be required to study it at least until 14.

Headmaster Richard Cairns said he wanted pupils to have a strong command of Mandarin - spoken by 867 million people - by the time they leave school.

Trial lessons have already begun with the very youngest children in the school and it is hoped that in time all 200 pupils in the pre-prep years, 300 in the prep school and 700 in the college will be taught the language.

All three-year-olds joining the school in the autumn will be given three short lessons in the language a week.

Mr Cairns said: "We want to ensure that every child leaves Brighton College prepared for the realities of the 21st century, one of which is that China is certain to be the second largest economic power in the world by the time these three-year-olds leave the College in 2022.

"I believe that it is essential that as many children as possible are well placed to take advantage of the opportunities that this presents.

"A knowledge of the language, culture and politics of China will also encourage children to be less anglocentric and more willing to engage with very different societies from our own

"It makes sense to begin this process with our very youngest pupils."

The school is taking advantage of a British Council programme to bring specialist Mandarin teachers over from China.

Sue Wicks, headmistress of Brighton's pre-prep school, said children found it easier to get to grips with Mandarin if they started learning it from a young age.

She said: "Young children have a thirst for knowledge and an openness of mind and ear that make them natural linguists. They are not embarrassed by the occasional mispronunciation in a way that a teenaged pupil might be."

Brighton College pupils will be able to go on to take GCSEs in Mandarin.

The initiative comes at a time of growing concern over the decline of languages in state schools and some independent schools.

Fewer teenagers are opting to study languages at all since ministers' 2004 decision to make them non-compulsory for over-14s.