Less than 10% of English teenagers can express themselves in a foreign language compared to 42% of young Europeans. Twenty years after Tony Blair’s reform, making learning a foreign language optional after the age of 14, the results are catastrophic.
The numbers speak for themselves. Once the first foreign language taught across the Channel, French has collapsed. The number of students choosing it as an exam for their secondary school leaving certificate, the A-Levels, amounts to… 7,000, compared to nearly 16,000 in 2003. The German language is doing even worse. This year, only 2,360 18-year-old students chose a test in Goethe’s language compared to 6,950 twenty years ago. Only Spanish stands out: starting from much lower, the language of Cervantes has become the first foreign language taught in the United Kingdom with 8,110 students taking the English baccalaureate.
These figures are having an impact in higher education with entire departments dedicated to modern languages closing each year for lack of students and, now, for lack of teachers. The University of Hull, in the north of England, no longer has a modern languages department since this year and that of Aberdeen, in Scotland, must find 15 million pounds sterling to meet its budget: with 37 teachers for… 27 students, its language department is no longer viable! Worse: in twenty years, knowledge of a foreign language has become the prerogative of the kingdom’s private schools and of young girls in the upper middle class, understand the big bourgeoisie, as in the past the piano. Devalued and considered as restrictive as it is useless, learning a foreign language scares away middle-class boys.
Today, however, the country’s experts are sounding the alarm: diplomacy and many sectors of the economy are suffering from this narrow-minded monolingualism. And it is the Ministry of Trade and Innovation which says so. He estimates the shortfall for the country’s economy at 3.5% of GDP. Baroness Coussins, a member of the House of Lords, estimates that every pound invested in language teaching returns two pounds to the national economy in exports and growth. “Speaking English is important, but only knowing English is a real handicap in the global job market.” It can even be dangerous for national security. Stephen Evans, a former high-ranking NATO officer, says that “with knowledge of a language comes knowledge of a culture, a crucial point for working among allies and understanding those who wish us harm.” Moreover, James Bond, a graduate of oriental languages, spoke German, French, Italian and Russian fluently.