Schools: Foreign Languages

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Monday 26th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

We are very focused on increasing the quality of literacy in this country. Our phonics programme is now acknowledged to have been a substantial success. We have focused the national curriculum, particularly in primary schools, much more on language skills.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

Will the Minister say whether any resources have been made available to schools to bring in native speakers? It used to be that teaching assistants—for example, French, German, Italian or Spanish assistants—were available and could be funded, particularly in secondary schools. My guess is that in primary schools they would be even more useful. Is there any effort to make that happen?

[Lord Nash]

The noble Baroness makes an extremely good point. We have given the British Council, for instance, £500,000 to recruit foreign language assistants to work in the UK. Currently, some 1,250 foreign language assistants have been recruited for English schools, and the British Council is working with Hanban to introduce a number of Chinese language assistants into the country.