Education: Languages

Baroness Coussins Excerpts

Wednesday 28th March 2012 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Baroness Coussins]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their response to the Language Trends survey 2011, published on 14 March 2012.

[Baroness Coussins]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. I declare an interest as chair of the All-Party Group on Modern Languages.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Hill of Oareford)]

My Lords, the Government welcome the finding of the language trends survey that in the past year there has been a 15 per cent increase in state schools now teaching languages to the majority of their GCSE pupils. We believe this shows that the English baccalaureate is starting to have a positive impact on take-up. We are considering the expert panel’s recommendations for the national curriculum review and will be announcing our plans shortly. This will be followed by a period of public consultation.

[Baroness Coussins]

My Lords, I agree that the Government deserve to be congratulated on the boost to modern languages as a result of the EBacc. It is also a welcome finding of the survey that significantly more schools with the highest levels of social deprivation are making these improvements. However, does the Minister agree that it is of serious concern that as many as 46 per cent of state schools still say they have no intention of improving their language provision as a result of the EBacc? Does he agree that this points to the need to accept the recommendation of the expert panel and avoid repeating the mistakes of 2004, by restoring modern languages to the compulsory part of the curriculum at key stage 4?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, as I have said, we are considering the recommendations of the expert panel, which, as the noble Baroness says, were very clear. We will set out our response to that. The sharp uptake after a number of years of decline is encouraging. Given that it has happened in such a short time, there are grounds to hope that the process will go further. I understand the points that she makes and we will take them into account as we ponder our response to the expert panel.