Education: Modern Foreign Languages

Baroness Coussins Excerpts

Thursday 18th January 2018 Grand Committee

Asked by

[Baroness Coussins]

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the importance of modern foreign language teaching in schools and universities, and of the impact of the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union on the sustainability of that teaching.

[Baroness Coussins (CB)]

My Lords, I start by declaring my interests as co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Modern Languages, which is supported by the British Council, and vice-president of the Chartered Institute of Linguists. I thank all noble Lords in advance for their contributions and look forward to the Minister’s reply. I am also grateful to the House of Lords Library for its excellent briefing pack.

Her Majesty’s Government have a great track record of saying positive things about learning foreign languages and of taking important initiatives to back up their fine words. As recently as last November, Schools Minister Nick Gibb said that the Government were committed to,

“remaining open to the world after we leave the EU and to becoming even more global and internationalist in our outlook. Improving the take-up and teaching of modern foreign languages in our schools … is an important part of achieving that goal”.

He added that there were,

“business, cultural and educational benefits to learning a language”.—[Official Report, Commons, 30/11/17; cols. 579-80.]

I would only add diplomacy, defence and security to the Minister’s list of benefits.

Important initiatives taken include making a foreign language part of the national curriculum for key stage 2; the EBacc has boosted take-up of language GCSEs; over 100 language teacher trainer scholarships have been awarded; and £10 million of government money has been invested in the Mandarin Excellence Programme. But—and I am sure noble Lords could all hear that but coming—despite all this, language teaching and learning in our schools and universities are in deep crisis. In 2004, languages became optional after the age of 14, reducing GCSE take-up from nearly 80% to half that. A compulsory language as part of the EBacc managed to get that back to 49%, but that may now be in reverse as entries fell in 2017 by 7.3%, and EBacc has had little, if any, impact on continued take-up post-16. Numbers taking French A-level have declined by one-third and for German by one-half. Just in case any noble Lords should think that that is not such a bad thing these days, when we need Mandarin more than we need French, I draw attention to the recent report from the British Council, which said that the top five languages needed by the UK for our prosperity and influence post Brexit are Spanish, Mandarin, French, Arabic and German.

The decline at A-level has the obvious knock-on effect for applications for MFL degrees at university, which have dropped by 57% in 10 years. Over 50 universities have scrapped some or all of their MFL degree courses. Uncertainty over the UK’s continued participation in the Erasmus+ programme is one reason for the drop in applications. I cannot emphasise strongly enough how important this scheme is for giving students of all disciplines, not just the linguists, the opportunity to improve language skills and develop an international and cross-cultural mindset. A study in the US and British Academy research show that that employers rate these skills at least as highly, or even more highly, than expertise in STEM subjects. Graduates who have spent a year abroad are 23% less likely to be unemployed than those who have not. Will the Minister give an assurance that after Brexit the UK, along with Norway and Switzerland, will continue to be part of Erasmus+ beyond 2020, especially as the European Commission plans to double participation in this scheme by 2025?

Erasmus+ is also a vital part of the supply chain for MFL teachers. The existing shortage risks becoming much worse because an estimated 35% of MFL teachers and lecturers are non-UK EU nationals, as are 85% of language classroom assistants. Unless they are guaranteed residency status post Brexit, MFL teaching in our schools could collapse. We are not producing enough languages graduates ourselves to meet the shortage, which the Department for Education estimated at 3,500 if the Government are to meet their EBacc target. We know that EBacc figures would shoot up if only more pupils were doing a language at GCSE, so it is very much in the Government’s own interests to protect and improve the supply of MFL teachers. Can the Minister say whether the Government have any firm data on the numbers of current MFL teachers from the EU? What proportion of applicants for initial teacher training in MFL and what percentage of MFL teachers leaving the profession are EU citizens? We have heard an awful lot recently about the dramatic reduction in the number of nurses coming from the EU to work in the NHS; it would be sensible to have equivalent data on MFL teachers to help shape the kind of training and recruitment programmes we might need to plug the gaps.

Can the Minister comment on the conflict between the EBacc and the Progress 8 system for measuring schools’ performance at GCSE? Languages are not compulsory under Progress 8 and there have been reports that some schools are using Progress 8 to avoid doing languages at all. That undermines the EBacc. Can the Minister say what specific action the Government can take to address this? I would also like to know how the Government intend to respond to evidence, most recently from the latest Language Trends Survey, that pupils in state schools—especially those in deprived areas, and including primary schools—are benefiting least from the advantages of learning a foreign language. Lower take-up at GCSE correlates with regions of poor productivity and low skill levels. For example, in the north-east in 2016, only 43% of pupils sat a GCSE in a language, compared with 75% in some London boroughs. Only one-third of state schools employ a language assistant, compared with 73% of independent schools. Only 30% of state schools still run exchange trips with a host family; 77% of independent schools do so. There is a correlation between pupils on free school meals and low MFL take-up, and pupils in deprived areas are increasingly allowed to drop their language after only two years in secondary school, or even withdrawn from language classes altogether. How does any of this help the social mobility that the Government say they are committed to?

I believe we need a cross-government national languages recovery programme, because the crisis is not just for the DfE to sort out. Many departments have a critical stake in making good our languages deficit as a nation: Justice, Health, Foreign Affairs, Defence, Media, International Development and, of course, Trade and Industry. We need more home-grown linguists and to rely less on importing our language skills. This challenge predated the EU referendum, of course, but the reality of Brexit, with the Government’s ambition for the UK to be a leader in global free trade and more influential on the world stage, makes it all the more urgent. As I said last week in the debate on the industrial strategy, speaking only English in the 21st century is as much a disadvantage as speaking no English. Language skills are a key enabler of success and need to be woven into all ages and stages of education and training, including apprenticeships and technical education.

Finally, will the Minister undertake to initiate discussions across government to kick-start a new strategic plan to rebuild the UK’s language skills? Will he support the proposal to designate a Minister with cross-government responsibility for languages, to ensure that, this time, decisive leadership achieves a step change in language learning in schools, FE and HE? The education sector could learn a lot from looking at the positive initiatives already being taken by the Foreign Office and the Army, for example. The Government could do a huge amount by selling the case for languages to students, parents, head teachers and employers alike. By no means does everyone need to be a specialist linguist, but the soft power advantage in the 21st century belongs to the multilingual citizen and nation, not the monolingual Brits of the past who thought that all they had to do to be understood was shout more loudly in English.