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Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve moved Amendment No. 117:
- Page 54, line 18, at end insert "and
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, in rising to move this amendment to Clause 81(3), I shall speak also to Amendment No. 118 to Clause 81(2). The aim of the amendments is to ensure that the status of modern foreign language study in secondary schools for 14 to 16 year-olds is not demoted. Neither amendment is intended to insist that one size fits all. Under Clause 82, it would still remain open to the Secretary of State to amend or waive those requirements. There is no Procrustean bed here.
The intention to demote the teaching of language is much more explicitly revealed in the Green Paper on 14 to 19 education published this February. It sets out aspirations that many noble Lords will share, but its proposals for the teaching of modern foreign languages are badly matched with those aspirations. There is increasing evidence of how bad is that match. The unintended consequences of the proposal to reduce the status of modern foreign language study for
There is some safety in trying to ensure that the modern foreign language remains part of the core curriculum at key stage 4 with, as at present, a system for exempting individual pupils for whom further language study would not be feasible or educationally advantageous. Languages are not only part of a broad and balanced education, they are vocationally important in many different walks of life. They are not the preserve of an elite; they are something that every child deserves and that many will need in their future employment.
Undoubtedly, we need to teach languages better. There is no dispute on that point, but stopping teaching them will not contribute towards that end. Unfortunately, since the publication of the Green Paper on 14 to 19 education, things have moved rapidly in the languages teaching world—rapidly downhill. I declare a non-financial interest as chairman of the Nuffield Foundation, which has sponsored work on language teaching and a report on which we had a debate on a previous occasion. We have in consequence been in receipt of many comments from language teachers, head teachers and LEAs on some of the changes now taking place.
Let us have no illusions. UK language performance was already in deep trouble before the 14-19 Green Paper was published. That has nothing to do with the special status of being an English-speaking country. Let us make a comparison with the other English-speaking country in the European Union, the Republic of Ireland. More Irish than British schoolchildren take languages to school-leaving level, although the Republic's population is about one-fifteenth of the UK population, perhaps one-twelfth of the English population. I am talking about numbers, not percentages.
In 1999 in the UK 21,333 pupils took French at A-level, and 9,677 took German. In the same year in the Republic of Ireland, 36,871 pupils took French at leaving-certificate level and 10,828 took German. Since schools became aware that language teaching might be demoted to optional status at age 14, some schools have jumped the gun. One northern comprehensive with an almost entirely working-class intake has decided not to take student teachers next year because the head has already decided to make languages optional for year 10 pupils from September 2002.
Previously, all pupils at that school took a language up to GSCE, barring a handful who were disapplied in a proper way under the provisions. Next year, out of a group of 300, 10 have opted for French and 16 for German; a total of 26 out of 300 pupils. One wonders for how long a school in that situation will continue to offer both French and German.
The planning blight is galloping. It may surprise your Lordships that the decision to make languages optional was taken by the school before the
It smacks of cynicism to make arrangements that undermine a subject while consultation about its reduction is in progress. What will be done if the consultation reveals strong and widespread opposition to the proposal? Will the replies to the consultation be made public? Will the damage already being done to language learning in schools and universities—including teacher training—be systematically monitored?
As we debate, the basis of opportunity for young people in England to learn any modern language is shrinking. Fewer pupils will proceed to GSCE, A-level and university. University language departments are being closed with monotonous regularity. Hardly a week goes by without a further degree scheme falling. Fewer teachers are training and entering schools, and so on in a vicious downward spiral.
None of that is necessary, and much is damaging. Above all, it damages the employment opportunities of young people educated in England. All around us, marketing and banking, airports and hotels, call centres and the legal profession, secretarial agencies and, yes, government service, need to recruit staff with language competencies. They recruit from those who were not educated in this country. Yet our young people are not given the basic competencies to enable them to work in Frankfurt or Milan.
In boom times, as we remain, that may leave people educated in the UK with sufficient opportunities, although fewer than their counterparts in other European countries. But what is to happen if the boom times end and employment levels here are less robust than in some other countries of the European Union? Young people deserve a broad, balanced education that supports and does not undermine their employment prospects. The amendment seeks to safeguard that aim. I beg to move.
Lord Quirk: My Lords, I support the amendment. I was reminded by the noble Lord, Lord Peston, that when the national curriculum was introduced in 1988 one of its goals was to have common breadth— an unrealistic common breadth, we may say in retrospect—with 10 compulsory subjects. What a long way we have retreated from 1988 to Clause 81, where that common core is reduced to three.
The glaring omission which the amendment seeks to redress puzzles me in view of the Government's record on foreign language teaching. Under the Prime Minister's enthusiastic leadership, the Government
Clause 81 seems a perversely retrograde step that is out of kilter with the general thrust of government policy and indeed perversely widens the gap between public sector schooling and the private sector, where foreign languages will not be downgraded in this way.
Of course it is easy to imagine reasons behind the Government's narrowing of the core. For example, modern language teachers are in short supply, as are those of other subjects in the core curriculum, such as science and mathematics. But EU ambassadors, under the lead of Herr von Ploetz of Germany, have assured us of help with modern language teachers. In any case, the teacher shortage—as my noble friend Lady O'Neill indicated—will be aggravated by falling numbers, which Clause 81 will guarantee; falling numbers at GSCE, A-level and undergraduate level.
The noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, is not in her place, but Universities UK has expressed concern, as the Minister will know, at the bad effect Clause 81 is having through the closure of university language departments.
Yet another reason is the perceived lack of motivation by pupils in anglophone schools to learn a foreign language, given the grossly exaggerated belief that everyone speaks English. Ninety per cent of the world's population do not speak or understand English; a fact that seems to be fully recognised at least by the only other anglophone country in the EU, as my noble friend Lady O'Neill mentioned. In the Republic of Ireland, in proportion to our respective populations, 10 times as many pupils take school-leaving examinations at the age of 17 in German, and 20 times as many in French.
Successive Secretaries of State have rightly deplored the culture of low aspiration that pervades our secondary schools while the present narrow core in Clause 81 moves in the direction of lowering children's aspirations still further. The none-too-obscure subtext tells schools, teachers and pupils alike, "Don't even think of aspiring to the levels accepted without hesitation in the schools of Italy, France, Germany and the Republic of Ireland. While they all expect their pupils to master two foreign languages, don't you even bother to master one foreign language". That modest goal was incorporated in 1988 in the national curriculum, but 14 years on we realise that it is beyond our capability.
What a depressing and defeatist message to come from a Government pledged to improve our educational achievements and, as with health services, to bring the service up to the standards expected in the rest of the EU and widely beyond! There are to be just three years of statutory provision to have one foreign language, with the open invitation to neglect and then
(d) a modern foreign language"
"it will not be possible for changes to the national curriculum to take effect until August 2004"—
—that is, after the Bill's passage; nevertheless,
"disapplication should no longer be considered exceptional provision".
6.45 p.m.
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