Written question asked by Andrew Dismore (Labour) on Monday, 10 January 2005, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Monday, 17 January 2005. It was answered by Stephen Twigg (Labour) on Monday, 17 January 2005 on behalf of the Department for Education and Skills.

Dept for Education and Skills

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills, what plans she has to increase the number of teachers of modern foreign languages in (a) secondary and (b) primary schools; and if she will make a statement.

Answer: Mr. Dismore: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what plans she has to increase the number of teachers of modern foreign languages in (a) secondary and (b) primary schools; and if she will make a statement. [207933] Mr. Stephen Twigg: The Government's National Languages Strategy for England recognises the importance of developing a workforce to implement primary language learning. This year 580 places have been allocated for Primary Initial Teacher Training with a specialism in French, German, Spanish or Italian and we intend to expand the programme further next year to 725 places. In addition we allocate 50 primary MFL places a year to the Graduate Teacher Programme. In addition to training for new teachers, we plan to increase numbers through Continuing Professional Development courses for existing primary teachers and through the contribution of teaching assistants and foreign language assistants. At secondary level we have no plans to increase the number of secondary modern foreign language teachers, given that demand will begin to fall, in line with falling pupil numbers.

Secondary information