Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what response they have made to the Language Trends Survey 2015–16, published by the British Council on 18 April.

The Department welcomes the survey; in particular its findings on the steps primary schools are taking to improve the quality of language teaching since it became compulsory in maintained primary schools in September 2014. By introducing the EBacc, we have stopped the decline in modern foreign languages seen in the last decade, where 200,000 fewer GCSE students studied a modern language in 2010 than in 2002.

Last year’s results showed 20% more pupils are taking languages at GCSE than in 2010 while A level entries in modern languages have increased by nearly 4% since 2014.