Education Bill

Baroness Coussins Excerpts

Tuesday 14th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Coussins]

My Lords, I will raise briefly two or three issues connected with modern languages in relation to some of the Bill's objectives. I declare an interest as chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Modern Languages.

The case for languages is key to the underlying drive to improve the overall quality of school education. There are cognitive, educational, social and economic benefits; but the UK is failing badly, with fewer pupils in the state sector taking language GCSEs every year. The English baccalaureate has provided a modest boost for languages, but only about 15 per cent of pupils are covered, and take-up of languages in state comprehensives is less than half that in independent and selective schools. Modern languages degree courses at university are vulnerable, partly because the Government have not heeded the advice of the noble Lord, Lord Browne, that languages should be a strategic priority for public investment, and instead have changed the funding system in a way that threatens the survival of modern languages degrees. The UK will be put at an even greater disadvantage—not to mention embarrassment—by our failure to produce sufficient graduates interested in careers as linguists.

Last month I visited the director-general for translation at the European Commission and met Commissioner Vassiliou, who is responsible for multilingualism in the EU. The UK is, if not quite a laughing-stock, then certainly the object of some disbelief at how and why we are content to be so bad at languages when patently it would be in our own self-interest to produce more people qualified to move into the enormous variety of jobs and careers available for native English speakers who can also work in other languages.

The Bill includes a requirement for schools to take part in international education surveys. I applaud the Government for placing importance on this type of measurement, which could point us in the right direction of how to do things better. We should be acting already on the OECD survey finding that put England joint bottom of the league table of 39 developed countries for the amount of classroom time spent on languages by 12 to 14 year-olds. However, I am encouraged that England—although for some reason not the rest of the UK—is one of the participating member states in the new EU survey that will produce a new European indicator of language competence. This aims to measure the general level of foreign language knowledge of pupils in member states. The first findings are due to be presented in 2012. Will the Minister tell the House, or at least write to tell me, how many English schools have participated in this survey, and how many more he expects will participate as a result of the measure proposed in the Bill? Will he also say what criteria will be attached to participation in other international education surveys?

The Bill also aims to achieve more focused Ofsted inspections, as we have heard from a number of speakers. I hope that this will be an opportunity for Ofsted to reclaim some of its influence on the teaching and learning of foreign languages. In the past few years, Ofsted inspections have paid less and less attention to languages. By contrast, its three-year thematic report on modern languages highlighted weaknesses in secondary schools, with far too much teaching to exams and not nearly enough opportunity for pupils to practise speaking the language. The same Ofsted report noted good progress in primary schools, yet because of the U-turn on the primary languages curriculum many schools are now winding down their language teaching, and LEAs are laying off primary language specialists. Can we have an assurance that if Ofsted is to produce more focused inspections and reports, as the Bill wants, the Government will not negate that focus by adopting policies that go in exactly the opposite direction, as we have seen in relation to languages? We might also be about to compound our poor national performance with a serious shortfall of language teachers. The TDA estimates that we will need an extra 660 MFL teachers by 2015, rising to an extra 1,550 by 2017. Will the Minister say what the Government are doing to address this shortfall?

The final issue I want to touch on is careers advice, which the Government seek to strengthen through this Bill. Having one or more languages in addition to English is a huge benefit when it comes to getting a job. The CBI education and skills survey, published about three weeks ago, revealed that only a quarter of UK businesses say they have no need for foreign language skills among their employees, so it is very important that careers advice dovetails with advice that children are given in school about option choices at GCSE, AS-level and A-level. Research undertaken by the charity Education and Employers Taskforce has highlighted the information gap that exists in schools, with young people simply not understanding the labour-market value of languages.

This is an area that would also help the Government achieve what they have said they wish to achieve in terms of closing the gap between pupils in the state sector and those in private education. The task force’s research notes how access to language learning has become socially determined, with young people in schools with high proportions of free school meals having significantly less access to language learning than their peers in wealthier areas.

I appreciate that this Bill is not directly about any subject in particular but about the structures and context in which better teaching and learning can take place. I simply ask the Government to ensure that where a new measure is introduced, be it independent careers advice, providing data for surveys or more focused inspections, schools are always and explicitly encouraged to take account of the potential of any new measure for making a positive impact on modern languages. They will be short-changing their pupils and their life chances if they do not.