A development agency has been accused of snubbing youngsters who are learning to speak mandarin Chinese.

Hummersknott School and Language College in Darlington is running the pioneering GCSE course as brilliant business prospects open up in the Chinese market.

But deputy head teacher Ann Hughes says the school's approaches for financial and moral support from One NorthEast have been met with silence for more than a year.

Mrs Hughes was further irritated after the agency mentioned the school was teaching mandarin when it opened a regional office in Shanghai recently, yet had not shown any support.

The school is one of seven in Darlington highlighted in The Northern Echo last week as facing huge funding problems.

Darlington's secondary schools do not qualify for the majority of additional funding because the area is not deemed to be socially deprived.

The five-year programme, which currently involves 29 children, costs £15,000 a year to fund and includes the services of mandarin Chinese teacher Hua Yan.

Said Mrs Hughes: "We are suffering a funding crisis. The money is a major issue, but it would have been better if the agency had just said we don't have any money but we think it's valuable and will give you all the moral support we can.

"We've been trying to encourage the agency to take an interest and have got nowhere."

The programme received a prestigious launch at Durham University last November, which no-one from the agency attended despite an invitation.

It was One NorthEast who recommended the school have Mandarin as a choice following a language skills capacity audit.

Said Mrs Hughes: "Because we're a language college we were looking to introduce a non-European language and in the long term we thought it was best to introduce for our kids and their employment prospects and in terms of business."

"The kids love it and they get on with their teacher very well."

A spokesman for One NorthEast said the agency's external relations manager for Learning and Skills had met with Mrs Hughes at a seminar on February 22 where it was explained a member of staff dedicated to language development would soon be appointed.

An appointment had now been made and a meeting had been arranged for April to discuss possible funding opportunities.