The Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. School on Putnam Avenue will become the first public school in New England to operate a Mandarin Chinese immersion program when the initiative is introduced in September 2011.

The program, which was unanimously approved by the Cambridge Public School Committee, will give incoming junior and senior kindergarten students the opportunity to be educated in Chinese as well as the English language until high school.

The option to choose the program, which will be open from the first cycle of kindergarten registration in January 2011, follows a number of other immersion schemes in Cambridge public schools, including the Amigos Elementary School (Spanish).

According to project coordinator Vivian Tam, the scheme’s introduction at King is a reflection of changes taking place throughout schools in the United States.

“The school has developed the program because raising a bilingual child has become increasing important,” she said. “We now live in a global world and students who are bilingual will be better-equipped to handle these new challenges that exist.”

King has run a Chinese program as an extension of its other programs for the past 15 years. Tam believes, however, that the introduction of a well-structured immersion program at the school will be particularly beneficial for participating students.

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