Former UK chancellor of the exchequer George Osborne has written a letter of support for a new free school in Manchester that will combine Eastern and Western education, while a bilingual English and Mandarin pre-pschool is set to open in London next year.

Both schools are responding to an increasingly popular belief among parents in the United Kingdom that an understanding of Mandarin and Chinese culture will benefit their children as China's global influence grows.

The Manchester Rutherford School hopes to open in September 2017 and serve 900 students ages 11 to 16. This week, the school's board is submitting a bid to the Department for Education to register under the free school initiative. Such institutions are free to attend and receive state funding, though they are not controlled by the local educational authority.