§ Baroness Haymanasked Her Majesty's Government:
What initiatives they have taken to promote the successful teaching of modern languages in secondary schools.
§ Lord HenleyWe have made a modern foreign language a compulsory part of the curriculum for all children aged 11 to 16 in maintained secondary schools. Support for modern foreign language teaching is available to schools through the Grants for Education Support and Training (GEST) scheme, totalling over £900 million for all national curriculum subjects since24WA 1989. In 1991–92 we made a special grant of £1.49 million to 60 local education authorities for first foreign language diversification. In addition we provide core funding for the Centre for Information on Language Teaching and Research, which provides a wide range of advice and support for language teachers.
In November 1994 we extended the specialist schools initiative to include modern foreign languages. It is open to all maintained secondary schools to apply to join the initiative, which aims to raise the standard of teaching and learning in modern foreign languages through participating schools putting special emphasis on this area of the curriculum while still teaching the full national curriculum. So far, 16 schools have successfully applied and many more are expressing strong interest.