Oral question asked in the House of Lords, by Baroness Howe of Idlicote (Crossbench). It was answered by Lord Adonis (Labour) on Monday, 19 November 2007.

Schools: Modern Languages

Question: What is their reaction to the fall in the number of secondary school pupils achieving GCSE success in modern languages.

Answer: My Lords, the Government are pursuing the recommendations of the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, to improve the take-up of languages. We are introducing an entitlement to learn a modern language in primary school. We have trained more than 2,000 primary school language teachers. The new languages ladder attracted 160,000 entries in 2006-07 in 21 languages with further languages to be added. Next year we are publishing GCSE success rates school by school to encourage schools to promote take-up rates.

Secondary information