Press Release

Statement on Lord Dearing’s interim report on language teaching

14 December 2006

The following is an immediate response to Lord Dearing’s insightful analysis of the current situation. CILT, the National Centre for Languages will be publishing a detailed formal response in the New Year.

CILT warmly welcomes Lord Dearing’s call to strengthen commitment to transforming our capability in languages in order to achieve the vision set out in the Government’s National Languages Strategy for England.

We welcome the proposal to make languages a compulsory element in the primary curriculum. This would be an inclusive measure and would give further momentum to implementing the Government’s strategy. It would also send a strong message about the importance the Government attaches to language study and the values and skills it wants for its future citizens.

We welcome the recognition of the need for variety, engagement and relevance in the secondary languages curriculum and also the recognition that many elements of this are already in existence. We therefore welcome the recommendation for a sustained programme of training and development for secondary teachers, and for further action to promote the benefits of languages to teenagers.

In the 14-19 phase it will be extremely important to strengthen the statutory position of languages in order to provide the necessary incentive for schools and colleges to work together to build new types of provision and to make the existing offer more attractive and motivating to pupils. Lord Dearing has recognised that, for languages to flourish within the new specialised Diplomas, demand needs to be more clearly articulated by employers and by organisations responsible for skills planning regionally and nationally. As yet there is too little recognition of the role that language skills can play in economic competitiveness, employability, and in achieving national and regional economic and social inclusion targets.  Languages are key in providing opportunities for international career development and can enhance career pathways for all young people. Employer surveys to be published in the coming weeks will show that employers are already starting to articulate more strongly the need for languages skills, as well as other attributes gained through language learning. It will be important that this and other evidence of the benefits of language skills are fed into the development of the specialised Diplomas and that languages have a strong place within applied learning frameworks and not simply as an academic subject.

We are pleased that Lord Dearing has recognised the role of CILT’s regional networks in providing a platform for co-ordinating strategic and operational action to achieve the objectives of this programme of reform and we look forward to working with the DfES and other key partners to take this work forward. 

Isabella Moore

Director

CILT, the National Centre for Languages