Victorian schools are pocketing $10,000 from a Chinese government body and getting free teaching and course materials to offer its Chinese language and culture courses.

Despite concerns over the appropriateness of outsourcing public school lesson time to an undemocratic foreign government body, the program – known as Confucius Classrooms – was rolled out to a further three Victorian schools in 2015, with plans to sign up more this year.

Confucius Classrooms are administered by the Confucius Institute, headquartered in Beijing's agency known colloquially as Hanban, the Office of the Chinese Language Council.

In an attractive package for cash-strapped school principals eager to offer their students Asian languages, the schools are paid $10,000 in the first year for teaching resources, and supplied with "teaching assistants" who are hired and paid by Hanban in China.