Employers 'want school-leavers with language skills'

January 12 2011

Employers are increasingly looking for school-leavers and graduates who can demonstrate strong language skills, it has been claimed.

Teresa Tinsley, director of planning, deliver and communications at the National Centre for Languages, said it is important that languages are not seen as "elitist" subjects and of no relevance to lower performing pupils.

"We have welcomed the announcement of the English baccalaureate as a way of increasing numbers. However, increased numbers will also increase the challenges in providing motivating and high quality teaching, especially in those schools where language departments have been seriously weakened," she commented.

"We are particularly concerned that these schools are ones with higher than average numbers of pupils on free school meals, and that high quality language learning is concentrated in grammar schools, specialist language colleges and the independent sector."

Ms Tinsley noted that children from poorer backgrounds often need extra encouragement when it comes to learning a language.

A report published this week by Ofsted revealed that two-thirds of schools have failed to meet targets set by the previous Labour government to ensure that half of children study a modern foreign language at GCSE.

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