All institutions will still be able offer the International Baccalaureate (IB) and receive normal funding per student supported by this government’s very significant investment into 16 to 19 education.

The base rate of funding per student has increased to £5,105 in the 2025/26 academic year, up over 5% on last year. However, to make this funding work hard, we have announced that from 2026/27 we will focus large programme uplift (LPU) funding, which is on top of the base funding, on those large programmes which include mathematics, further mathematics and other high value A levels. Other programmes, such as the IB, will no longer attract this uplift.

The department is giving transitional protection funding in the 2026/27 academic year so, for institutions that will lose a significant amount of LPU, the reduction will be spread over two years.

The study of languages is compulsory under the national curriculum at key stages 2 and 3 for all maintained schools, and will become compulsory in academies, subject to the passage of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill.

The most important factor in encouraging students to continue studying languages beyond key stage 3 is the quality of teaching. The government continues to fund the National Consortium for Languages Education, which is developing a new model of language support for schools and online continuing professional development for teachers that will support high quality language teaching. This programme is designed to have national reach, ensuring that all schools can benefit regardless of their location.

To further support languages education, the department is offering a £26,000 tax-free bursary for trainee language teachers starting courses in 2025, or alternatively, a £28,000 tax-free scholarship for those training to teach French, German, or Spanish. Additionally, Oak National Academy is developing modern foreign languages lesson resources for key stages 2 to 4, to be fully released by autumn 2025, helping teachers deliver high quality lessons and reduce planning time.

Having the opportunity to study a modern foreign language should be part of the broad and rich education that every child in this country deserves.

Languages provide an insight into other cultures and can open the door to travel and employment opportunities. They also broaden pupils’ horizons, helping them flourish in new environments.

The government is committed to providing enriching opportunities for students and young people to experience other countries and cultures, including through school trips and exchanges. We also recognise the difficulties that schools have faced in recent years when it comes to organising visits. The UK has agreed measures with France which make school trip travel between the UK and France easier.

The Turing Scheme is the UK government’s global programme for students to study and work abroad. Students can develop new skills, including language skills, gain international experience and boost their employability. The scheme has been helping tens of thousands of UK students to study and work abroad for four years and we have recently announced that the scheme will be running for a fifth year.

The UK has a bilateral student exchange programme with Germany, the UK German Connection (UKGC), which provides opportunities for children, young people, and a limited number of language teachers in the UK and Germany to engage in a range of activities, including seminars, exchanges, visits and study courses. UKGC seeks to support current German learners in the UK and encourage more to learn the language.

The department also has a long-standing Language Assistants Programme, delivered by the British Council, to improve modern foreign language skills through direct interaction with native speakers from around the world. This includes arranging placements in the UK for non-UK residents to assist with teaching French, Spanish, Mandarin, German and Italian (as Modern Language Assistants). In the 2024/25 academic year, there are 700 Modern Language Assistants allocated to UK schools.

On 29 July, the Government announced that, as of 1 January 2025, all education services and vocational training provided by a private school in the UK for a charge will be subject to VAT at the standard rate of 20 per cent. This will also apply to boarding services provided by private schools.

Any fees paid from 29 July 2024 relating to the term starting in January 2025 onwards will be subject to VAT. Furthermore, where a school in England has charitable status, the Government will legislate to remove their eligibility to business rates charitable rate relief. This is intended to take effect from April 2025, subject to Parliamentary passage.

This includes independent schools, part-funded by overseas governments, bi-lingual schools, and faith schools. The final policy design will be confirmed at the Budget.

A technical note setting out the details, alongside draft VAT legislation, was published in July and is available here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/vat-on-private-school-fees-removing-the-charitable-rates-relief-for-private-schools.

Business rates are administered by local government. Therefore, local authorities are responsible for determining eligibility for reliefs, including with respect to dual-use locations. Charitable rates relief is available to properties deemed to be ‘wholly or mainly’ used for charitable purposes. Certain properties are exempt from business rates including buildings that are places of public religious worship and buildings used for the training and/or welfare of disabled persons. The Valuation Office Agency (VOA) is responsible for determining whether a property meets the necessary legal requirements to be exempt. Details on final policy decisions regarding the removal of private schools’ eligibility for charitable rate relief will be set out at the Budget.

The Government has carefully considered the impact that changes to the tax treatment of private schools will have on pupils and their families across both the state and private sector, as well as the impact they will have on state and private schools. Following scrutiny of the Government’s costing by the independent Office for Budget Responsibility, the Government will confirm its approach to these reforms at the Budget on 30 October, and set out its assessment of the expected impacts of these policy changes in a Tax Information and Impact Note (TIIN). TIINs give a clear explanation of the policy objective, including details of the tax impact on the Exchequer, business, individuals and any equalities impacts.

These changes will not affect the VAT status of FE Colleges. Maintained schools are funded by local authorities, who are able to recover their VAT through the s33 VAT refund scheme, which aims to ensure VAT is not a burden on local taxation. Academies can also recover their VAT under s33B, to ensure they are not disincentivised from leaving LA control. FE colleges do not meet the rationale for admission to either refund scheme.

On 29 July, the Government announced that, as of 1 January 2025, all education services and vocational training provided by a private school in the UK for a charge will be subject to VAT at the standard rate of 20 per cent. This will also apply to international schools in the UK who provide education and vocational services for a charge.

This will secure additional funding to help deliver the Government’s commitments relating to education and young people, including opening 3,000 new nurseries, rolling out breakfast clubs to all primary schools, and recruiting 6,500 new teachers.

A technical note setting out the details of this policy has been published online here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/vat-on-private-school-fees-removing-the-charitable-rates-relief-for-private-schools.

Draft VAT legislation has also been published alongside this technical note forming a technical consultation. The Government is engaging with a wide range of stakeholders as part of this consultation, to assess the impacts of these reforms.

The department does not produce projections of future trends of the number of students taking specific qualifications or future trends in the number of schools or colleges offering specific qualifications.

The department recognises the importance of the study of languages in Britain and is taking steps to increase the number of pupils studying languages at GCSE level and beyond. This is particularly important given that languages became non-mandatory at GCSE in 2004. The recently launched Language Hubs programme is comprised of 15 lead hub schools from across England, including a hub based in the North West. The lead hub schools will work with other schools in their areas to improve standards of language teaching, in line with recommendations of the Teaching Schools Council’s 2016 ‘Modern Foreign Languages Pedagogy Review’.

Managed by the National Consortium for Languages Education, the programme provides high-quality teacher Continuing Professional Development and includes improving transition from key stage 2 to key stage 3, increasing opportunities among disadvantaged pupils to study languages, and increasing the access to home, heritage, and community languages.

School funding is distributed by the department fairly, based on schools’ and pupils’ needs and characteristics. It is then for school heads and governors to decide how this money is spent, in line with their school’s context.

The department does not hold the cost and spending for translating school materials into non-English languages or providing language translators in schools. Such professional services are procured by individual schools and local authorities. Local authorities can ‘de-delegate’ funding from maintained schools in their area to meet the costs to improve the performance of underperforming pupils from ethnic minority groups and meeting the specific needs of bilingual pupils, and local authorities submit data on this spending as part of their annual returns to the department. ‘De-delegated’ funding is spent centrally by local authorities to meet costs faced by maintained schools in their area.

The government remains committed to increasing the proportion of pupils who choose to study a language up to GCSE and beyond, as well as to improving the quality of language teaching at both primary and secondary schools.

In March 2023, the department announced a new £14.9 million Language Hubs programme, including a distinct German Promotion Project. The programme will be comprised of up to 25 lead hub schools, all of which will work with partner schools to improve standards of language teaching across the country, in line with recommendations of the Teaching Schools Council’s 2016 modern foreign languages pedagogy review.

Since 2016, the department has funded the £20 million Mandarin Excellence Programme, which supports schools and teachers to deliver intensive Mandarin study to increase the quality of Mandarin lessons and to increase uptake in the subject. The programme provides professional development and teaching resources for teachers in participating schools across England.

From September 2024, teaching of the revised subject content for French, German, and Spanish GCSEs will begin. The new content is intended to encourage more students to take up these important subjects, making them more accessible to all pupils.

To ensure high standards of modern foreign language teaching, language curriculum materials and associated resources will be developed by Oak National Academy, as part of its second tranche of procurement. The first materials will be available from autumn 2024, and full curriculum packages by autumn 2025. This will ensure that high quality, optional lessons are available nationwide, benefitting both teachers and pupils.

The Department knows that all pupils deserve to be taught a knowledge rich curriculum which promotes the extensive reading of books and other kinds of texts both in and out of school. School libraries complement public libraries in allowing pupils to do this.

Pupils should be taught to maintain positive attitudes towards reading and to develop an understanding of what they read by increasing their familiarity with a wide range of books, including myths, legends and traditional stories, modern fiction, fiction from the UK’s literary heritage and books from other cultures and traditions. Teachers have flexibility in which books to teach within the context of the curriculum.

The Autumn Statement 2022 announced that funding for mainstream schools and high needs is £3.5 billion higher in 2023/24 as compared to 2022/23. That is on top of the £4 billion, year on year increase provided in 2022/23, which is an increase of £7.5 billion, or over 15%, in just two years. It is for headteachers to decide how best to manage their budgets, including investment in resources such as library provision and reading books produced in different languages.

The Department also recognises that schools can face additional challenges when they have pupils on roll who have limited or no English language skills. The Department has allocated funding to schools through the English as an additional language (EAL) factor in the National Funding Formula for schools. This funding is based on the number of pupils who are classed as having a first language other than English and who have started in the state funded education system in England in the last three years.

Allocations are made on the basis of data collected through the October school census and equate to an additional £580 per primary school pupil and £1,565 per secondary pupil in the current financial year. Schools have the flexibility to use this funding based on the needs of their pupils, such as by providing reading books produced in community languages.

We are aware of reports that Tibetan parents are being coerced into sending their children to boarding schools in Tibet with no access to traditional Tibetan learning. We continue to raise the situation in Tibet with the Chinese authorities, and in March, we raised the issue of boarding schools in our Item 4 statement at the UN Human Rights Council (HRC). We also coordinate with partners to draw international attention to the human rights situation in Tibet. In June 2022, a UK led lobbying effort helped to secure the support of 46 other countries for a joint statement at the HRC which highlighted the situation in Tibet, and called on the Chinese authorities to abide by their human rights obligations. On 18 April a G7 Foreign Ministers Communiqué noted that all G7 countries continue to raise concerns with China on human rights violations, including in Tibet. We will continue to work with international partners and press China to cease human rights violations.

Information on the school workforce in England, including subjects taught in state funded secondary schools, is collected as part of the annual School Workforce Census each November. Information is published in the ‘School Workforce in England’ statistical publication which is available at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-workforce-in-england.

Information on the number of qualified teachers of Romanian is not collected by the Department. Any teachers of Romanian will be reported by schools to the Department within the ‘Other modern foreign languages’ category.

It is up to individual schools to decide which languages are taught as part of their curriculum, both at primary and secondary school, and the Department does not specify which languages should be taught or how to teach them. When deciding which languages to teach their pupils, schools are likely to consider the needs of the community in which they serve. Schools would be able to teach pupils Romanian as a language option, if they thought there was sufficient demand to do so.

In March 2023, the Department launched its new Language Hubs programme, managed by the National Consortium for Languages Education (NCLE) based at University College London’s Institute of Education. As part of this programme, the NCLE is expected to increase access to home, heritage, and community languages, signposting to supporting materials and good practice, and working more closely with supplementary schools.

​​The Government remains committed to increasing the proportion of pupils who choose to study a language up to GCSE and beyond, as well as to improving the quality of language teaching at both primary and secondary schools. The Department funds a number of language education programmes, with a primary aim of improving teacher and lesson quality.

​On 3 March 2023, the Department announced the launch of a new Language Hubs programme, worth up £14.9 million. Managed by the National Consortium for Languages Education, the programme seeks to improve the standards of language teaching in line with the recommendations of the Teaching Schools Council’s 2016 Modern Foreign Languages (MFL) Pedagogy review. This includes the provision of continuing professional development (CPD), training, and support for language teachers nationwide, as well as improving transition between Key Stages 2 and 3.​

​Since 2016, the Department has funded the £10 million Mandarin Excellence Programme, which supports schools and teachers to deliver intensive Mandarin study to increase the quality of Mandarin lessons and uptake in the subject. The programme provides specially designed teacher meetings for professional development and a forum to share ideas and best practice, as well as provision of online teaching materials and resources to enhance lessons.

​The Department’s £3.9 million Latin Excellence Programme, which began in September 2022, is designed to fund and support non selective schools to deliver Latin teaching at Key Stages 3 and 4. The programme provides a fully resourced, evidence based curriculum to support all pupils at Key Stages 3 and 4, regardless of starting point, and regular, high quality CPD for teaching Latin in the state sector.

​To ensure high standards of MFL teaching, language curriculum materials and associated resources will be developed by Oak National Academy as part of its second tranche of procurement. First materials will be available from autumn 2024, and full curriculum packages by autumn 2025. This will ensure that high quality, optional lessons are available nationwide, benefitting both teachers and pupils.

The Department does not provide any funding for charitable or faith community-run weekend language schools and has not done so in any of the last five years.

We do not have any plans to waive visa application fees for language assistants who are looking to use the Points Based System to work in UK schools.

Fees provide a vital contribution towards the provision of the resources necessary to operate and sustain our borders and immigration system. This reduces reliance on taxpayer funding, while ensuring the costs of the system are met. It would be unfair to the taxpayer and other users of the immigration system if we were to exempt EU citizens seeking work as language assistants given our migration system is now a global one, not one determined by whether you hold an EEA or non-EEA passport

Increasing languages take-up is a key priority for the department. In September 2014, a statutory requirement for all key stage 2 pupils to study either an ancient or a modern foreign language was introduced to the national curriculum. The department has also taken steps to increase the uptake of languages at GCSE. GCSEs in all modern and ancient languages have been part of the English Baccalaureate performance measure for secondary schools, first introduced in 2010.

The department also recently completed its review into the subject content for French, German, and Spanish GCSEs – the most popular languages at this level. Although the new GCSE will not be available for first teaching until September 2024, the intention is that more pupils will want to study languages at GCSE level and encourage them to continue with this study to post-16 and beyond. The department published the government response to the consultation alongside the revised subject content in January 2022.

The total number of pupils in state-funded schools in England entered for examinations in at least one language GCSE has increased from 231,224 in 2010 to 253,379 in 2019. This amounted to an increase among all key stage 4 pupils from 40% in 2010 to 47% in 2019. With GCSE examinations due to recommence in 2022, the department will return to publishing, as far as possible, our usual range of English Baccalaureate entry and attainment measures.

The department also provides funding for several programmes to improve teaching quality and take-up in specific languages. These are:

• The Modern Foreign Languages Pedagogy Pilot led by the National Centre for Excellence for Language Pedagogy at the University of York,
• The Mandarin Excellence Programme (MEP) led by University College London Institute of Education in partnership with the British Council, and
• Modelled on the MEP, the department also recently announced a £4 million Latin Excellence Programme to increase uptake and attainment in Latin in secondary schools from September 2022 onwards.

Education is a devolved matter, and the response will outline the information for England only. The government is committed to increasing the number of pupils studying languages at GCSE, including languages that are reflected in modern Britain. That is why the teaching of languages is in the national curriculum for pupils from age 7 to 14, and why GCSE languages were included as part of the English Baccalaureate (EBacc) suite of subjects in 2010. There are eighteen GCSEs in modern languages that are recognised in the EBacc, including Arabic, Polish, Punjabi, and Urdu.

The department also remains committed to reforming the subject content for French, German and Spanish GCSEs in order to make them more well-rounded for both teachers and pupils, focusing on the foundational building blocks of language education, namely vocabulary, phonics and grammar. We will publish this new content shortly.

In addition, the department continues to work on developing a GCSE in British Sign Language and aim to consult publicly on draft subject content next year.

It is ultimately for schools to decide which languages they wish to teach, and the department does not specify which languages should be taught or how to teach them.