Evening Standard: Languages mustn’t become the preserve of the rich
In Junior School, my daughter was introduced to: French, Spanish, German and Mandarin. In year 7, she was taught how to learn any language and spent a term learning: German, Russian and Mandarin. In year 8, she’s now being taught: Latin, German and Italian.
It used to be a joke, the British unwillingness to speak a foreign language. Now it’s not even funny. We learn today that far fewer students are taking arts subjects at university, and in the case of modern languages, there’s been a decrease of over a third since 2011 to 3,830.
What’s going on? Has the entire nation been relying on Google Translate when they go abroad? Well, probably.
But it’s also the flip side of the other obvious trend, that more young people are gravitating to computer sciences, engineering and medicine. You know, it’s possible to have both.
So much for Brexit Britain’s push to engage constructively with our European neighbours and create new vibrant export markets. In all these endeavours it helps not to start with the assumption that everyone else is going to speak English, even if quite often it turns out to be true. The upside to Brexit is that young Brits aren’t going to be hideously embarrassed in Brussels by being surrounded by polyglots: most Belgians fret if they can’t speak four languages.
The decline at university is the natural result of a falling off in languages further down the educational system. That’s much more problematic. This time last year a report by the Higher Education Policy Institute warned that UK pupils are “miles behind” their European counterparts when it comes to knowledge of a foreign language. Less than a third of 16 to 30-year-olds are able to speak and read another language.
Why? Back in 2002, the Labour government scrapped the requirement that everyone should study languages at key stage four, to set them up for GCSE.
The inexorable result is that fewer than half of UK pupils take modern languages at GCSE, compared with over three quarters back then. That’s a failed policy then.
Time for the man of the moment, Gavin Williamson, Education Secretary, to reverse it. Then there’s the unspoken problem, that so much of what language tuition remains is done by private schools.
If learning German has become the preserve of the educational elite, we’ve gone badly wrong.
The full article can be read here: Languages mustn’t become the preserve of the rich