BRITAIN'S LANGUAGE RECORD TO WORSEN EVEN THOUGH WE ARE ALREADY DUNCE OF THE CLASS
December 14, 2004 12:00 AM
The EU Commission has confirmed that Britain is the only one of the 25 EU member states to be relaxing the requirement to learn foreign languages, even though we already have the worst EU record for speaking foreign languages.
The Government dropped the requirement to study a foreign language between the ages of 14 to 16 in September this year.
Commenting, Ms. Hall said:
'Many EU countries are moving in the opposite direction to Britain by introducing longer and earlier compulsory foreign languages. Belgium, Denmark, Greece, Germany, France, Italy and Austria have all extended or toughened language learning since 2002.
'The German, Italian, Spanish and French Ambassadors wrote to the press recently to express concern at the state of British language teaching. They said that 1 in 10 UK businesses were losing contracts because of poor staff language skills.
'This is of particular concern to us in the North East, as we export more to Europe than any other region. Europe is a market of 450 million potential customers for North East firms, and I worry that the Government's lack of commitment to language learning is holding our region back.'
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