Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans the Government has to develop a national languages strategy.

The Department have a number of initiatives in place to promote the uptake of languages and to improve attainment. The English Baccalaureate (EBacc) performance measure, which includes languages, has seen the proportion of GCSE entries from pupils in state funded schools in a modern foreign language (MFL) increase from 40% in 2010 to 46% in 2018. The reformed National Curriculum now makes it compulsory for pupils in maintained schools to be taught a foreign language in Key Stage 2.

The £4.8 million MFL Pedagogy Pilot commenced in December 2018. It is managed by the newly appointed MFL Centre for Excellence and is run through nine school led hubs, to improve uptake and attainment in languages at Key Stages 3 and 4. We have also launched a pilot project in MFL undergraduate mentoring for secondary school pupils to drive up participation in the subject, specifically targeting areas of high disadvantage to extend access to languages for all pupils.

Recruiting MFL teachers is a priority for the government. The Department offers generous financial incentives for languages teaching, including scholarships in modern foreign languages worth £28,000, and tax-free bursaries typically worth up to £26,000. The Department is also working in partnership with Spain’s Ministry of Education and Vocational Training to deliver Spain’s Visiting Teachers Programme to provide schools with access to a pool of qualified teachers from Spain who are able to teach MFL. For the 2019/20 academic year, the programme will be open to secondary schools and also (as a pilot) to primary schools. In addition to this, the Teacher Subject Specialism Training programme aims to improve the subject knowledge of non-specialist teachers and returning teachers in MFL and to increase the number of hours taught.

The Department also launched the new Teacher Recruitment and Retention Strategy, which will attract new teachers to all subjects, including MFL.

The Department continues to promote the value of language qualifications to students who are choosing their GCSEs. The Department recently published and promoted a guidance leaflet^[1] for parents, which explains why studying a language, as part of the EBacc, broadens opportunities in both education and employment. In February, the Department drew attention to the benefits of studying a language among 13-14 year olds through a social media campaign.

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/english-baccalaureate-ebacc.