Jamie Stone
Main Page: Jamie Stone (Liberal Democrat - Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)Department Debates - View all Jamie Stone's debates with the Department for Education
(6 years ago)
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Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)
The Government’s ambition is that 90% of pupils will study the EBacc combination of GCSEs, including a foreign language, by 2025. We offer generous financial incentives to recruit more language teachers, and we have introduced the Mandarin excellence programme and modern foreign languages—MFL—teaching hubs to increase languages take-up and to support schools to improve the quality of foreign languages teaching.
Jamie Stone
I thank the Minister for his answer. One way to stimulate learning foreign languages in our schools is by using foreign exchange students. Indeed, in my school days, a charming French lady greatly stimulated my knowledge of the language. I am not a member of the governing party in Scotland. I therefore ask whether Her Majesty’s Government will do everything they can to continue using exchange students and to build on that in future.
Mr Speaker
I think the whole House would digest the hon. Gentleman’s personal memoir. We are indebted to him for it.