§ 16. Mr. Dalyellasked the Minister of Education how many pupils study Spanish in schools in England and Wales; whether any pupils have spent time in Spanish-speaking countries under education authority auspices; and whether he will set up a committee to consider the teaching of Spanish, similar to the Annan Committee on the teaching of Russian, in view of the growing importance of trade with South America.
§ Sir E. BoyleI have at present no precise information in answer to the first part of the Question. The number of pupils offering Spanish in the General Certificate of Education has risen, and I understand that school journeys to Spain are not uncommon. The answer to the last part of the Question is "No", but I hope that the extension of modern language teaching in primary schools will lead to an increase in the teaching of Spanish and other languages at the secondary school stage.
§ Mr. DalyellWhat are the objections to setting up such a committee?
§ Sir E. BoyleI cannot help feeling at present that we should not set up too 1292 many committees to study the teaching of individual languages in the sort of way the hon. Gentleman suggests; in any case, we should not be able to do very much more without having a stronger basis of language teaching in the primary schools than we have today. If the hon. Gentleman would care to come to see me about it, I am quite ready to discuss the matter with him further. He may not know that there has been a quite sharp increase in the number of candidates offering A-level Spanish; it went up in the 1950s from 518 to 1,412, and it has been going up quite sharply during recent years.
§ Mr. ProudfootDoes my right hon. Friend accept that, if we went over to the decimal coinage system, languages could be taught much earlier in the primary schools?
§ Sir E. BoyleI recently announced what I regard as a quite important project in French teaching in primary schools, which will, I hope, lay the basis for considerably more diversified modern language teaching at the secondary stage.