§ Mr. Roperasked the Secretary of State for Defence how many officers and soldiers, respectively, serving in the British Army of the Rhine and Berlin have reached each of the standards of colloquial, linguist and interpreters II or I in Flemish/Dutch; and what plans he has to increase those numbers, in view of the roles of the Belgian and Netherlands Armies in Northern Army Group.
§ Mr. Robert C. BrownOne officer and five soldiers have attained colloquial standard, one soldier has attained Interpreter Class II standard and one officer has attained Interpreter Class I standard. A study is well in hand of the ways in which foreign language training for officers could be further improved.
§ Mr. Roperasked the Secretary of State for Defence what numbers of officers and of soldiers, respectively, have reached each of the four standards of language proficiency and are now serving in BAOR.
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§ Mr. Robert C. BrownThe numbers of BAOR officers and soldiers who have reached a recognised level of language proficiency are as set out below:
NATO LANGUAGES (a) Officers Interpreter Class I … … … 12 Interpreter Class II … … … 49 Linguist … … … 68 Colloquial … … … 455 (b) Soldiers Interpreter Class I … … … 3 Interpreter Class II … … … 15 Linguist … … … 28 Colloquial … … … 648 WARSAW PACT LANGUAGES (a) Officers Interpreter Class I … … … 0 Interpreter Class II … … … 26 Linguist … … … 13 Colloquial … … … 8 (b) Soldiers Interpreter Class I … … … 2 Interpreter Class II … … … 22 Linguist … … … 19 Colloquial … … … 68