§ Mr. Shoreasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what language qualifications are required of new entrants to the senior branch of the Foreign Office; and what facilities are available for foreign service officers to acquire additional foreign language qualifications.
§ Mr. PadleyCandidates for the Administrative Class of the Diplomatic Service must satisfy the Civil Service Selection Board that they have the ability to learn foreign languages. A candidate whose university course does not include a modern language at degree level, or who has not passed an equivalent examination, is required to take a language test comprising dictation, conversation andviva voce translation into English. Tests are normally held in French, German, Spanish, Italian and Russian but other languages useful in the Diplomatic Service are accepted. Candidates for the Supplementary Open Competition must have a competent knowledge of at least one language of value to the Service.
Much subsequent language training both at home and abroad, especially in hard languages, is conducted by private tutors. Each year several new entrants are assigned to full-time studies in Slavonic, Oriental and African languages. Officers are encouraged to attend commercial, educational and governmental language institutions in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. The Diplomatic Service runs its own Arabic courses at the Middle East Centre for Arab Studies in the Lebanon and will shortly open a Language Laboratory in London to provide tuition in French, German, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese.
Tuition costs are met from public funds and, as an incentive, language allowances are paid to those officers who succeed in the language examinations conducted on behalf of the Service by the Civil Service Commission.