Lord Morgan
Main Page: Lord Morgan (Labour - Life peer)
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My noble friend makes an interesting point. Many schools up and down the land have after-school clubs in languages, and some have Saturday schools as well. There are also supplementary schools that meet at the weekend. These are largely set up by specific ethnic communities and are where children who go to a state school during the week learn their heritage language: for instance, Arabic, Polish or Greek. However, I agree that there is more that we can do, and Saturday clubs might provide a way through.
Lord Morgan
My Lords, is it not ironic, in view of what we have heard, that modern languages are a particular casualty of the disastrous changes in the Government’s funding regime in universities? Does this not completely contradict what the Minister has been saying?
Baroness Garden of Frognal
No, that is not entirely true. Modern languages are categorised as one of the strategically important and vulnerable subject areas, so increased funding is going to universities to try to ensure that language provision remains.