Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the report by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Modern Languages and the British Council, A national recovery programme for languages, published on 4 March.

The government welcomes the All Party Parliamentary Group’s report. Languages are increasingly important to ensure future competitiveness in the global market.

The department’s strategy for languages includes the English Baccalaureate (EBacc) performance measure, which 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 makes it compulsory for pupils in maintained schools to be taught a foreign language in key stage 2.

Our £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 9 school-led hubs, to improve uptake and attainment in languages at key stages 3 and 4. The department has 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 also a priority. Generous financial incentives are offered for languages teaching, including scholarships in MFLs worth £28,000, and tax-free bursaries, typically worth up to £26,000. The government is 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 MFLs. For the 2019/20 academic year. This 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 MFLs and increase the number of hours taught.

The department has also recently launched the new Teacher Recruitment and Retention Strategy, which will attract new teachers to all subjects, including MFLs.

The department continues to promote the value of language qualifications to students who are choosing their GCSEs and to their parents. A guidance leaflet for parents was recently published, and can be found attached, 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.