Schools: Modern Languages

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Tuesday 24th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

Certainly it is very clear how much business recognises the value of languages. Indeed, a recent report by the CBI, published last year, said that 70% of businesses value foreign languages, particularly in the context of building contacts and relationships overseas. As I said, universities in particular are playing a role in discussions with employers to help to make sure that graduates understand the opportunities that are open to them. Of course, as we look to improve careers education within the school system, that will be another way to drum the message into young people about the value of languages, and I hope that with inspirational teachers to help them we will see a continuing growth in the number of young people speaking a foreign language in this country.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, there are two issues here. First, although the Minister said that the teaching of modern languages increased with the introduction of the English baccalaureate, it has since begun to decline again. I fear that that position might well be exacerbated by the unfortunate decision of OCR. Secondly, the Government’s qualification reform programme is massive in scale and has been pushed through to a rather unrealistic schedule, as alluded to by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill. We are almost at the end of May, yet a number of teachers in about six disciplines still do not know what they will be asked to teach their students in September. Can the Minister say who she holds responsible for this? Is it the Department for Education or Ofcom?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

The noble Lord is quite right that the EBacc has had a positive impact on the number of children taking up languages in schools. Our goal is for 90% of pupils to take the core academic subjects, including languages at GCSE, so we hope to see that continue.