Education: Language Assistants

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, I am very happy to acknowledge the contribution made by the British Council, particularly in the language assistants programme. I completely accept the extremely important role that that plays, particularly with young people. One of the reasons why I am very supportive of the work which the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, is doing to promote the teaching of modern foreign languages is that it helps to build ties between different countries. Those ties and the cultural role of that work are extremely important.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

My Lords, is the Minister aware of the work that is being done by the British Council in North Korea? I recently saw the work of English language teachers there. Over the past decade, they have been teaching teachers to teach English in schools in that most benighted of places. It is a wonderful sign of hope that English has now become the second language in North Korea as a result of the work of the British Council. Surely, we should do nothing whatever to jeopardise the small steps that are being taken in remote parts of the world where English may offer the best hope for people living in benighted places such as North Korea.

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

I agree with the point that the noble Lord makes but I also think that it is very much a two-way traffic. That is one of the benefits of this scheme. Other countries benefit from our young people going there and helping to spread English and we benefit from young people from those countries coming here and helping our young people to learn languages.