"First and foremost, the Inquiry team is pleased that the response explicitly accepts the key messages of the report: it recognises the importance of languages for the future well-being of the UK and accepts the need for a coherent strategy to develop excellence in language learning. The response was presented by Schools Minister Jacqui Smith, who also announced that a cross-departmental working group is to be established by the end of February (2001) to consider the development of the languages strategy proposed by the Inquiry. We welcome this decision and regard it as a positive first step towards achieving the coherence and balanced responsibility which the Nuffield report argues are crucial to improved performance.
We welcome also the positive tone of the document, the recognition of the long-term nature of the task ahead and the fact that several key issues - such as early language learning and the need for languages to be designated a key skill - have been kept open. However, while we are encouraged by the Government's declared intention of addressing the issues raised by the Inquiry, we remain concerned that the scope and urgency of these issues may still not have been fully registered. The reassuring tone of the DfEE response contrasts with the current situation in many sectors of education where, as the Inquiry report shows, languages are in or near crisis. We are concerned about a number of features of the statement and the following are among the issues we will be taking up with the Government.
- We had expected a response incorporating the thinking of government departments other than the DfEE since our report makes a strong case that improving the UK's capacity in languages involves the whole of government and is not just an educational issue. The narrow perspective of languages in the document - no more than 'Modern Foreign Languages', a subject among others on the schools curriculum - sits uneasily alongside the Inquiry's broad view of languages within the context of a multilingual society.
- The document is unbalanced also in its coverage of the different sectors of education. While issues relating to secondary school education are covered in detail, the document acknowledges none of the acute problems facing languages in further and higher education, and its proposals for adult learners reveal a limited and limiting view of lifelong language learning.
- In our view the response gives undue emphasis to the likely influence of the Language Colleges. While the higher profile which the specialist schools initiative gives to language learning is universally welcomed and the Colleges' achievements warmly applauded, many believe the Department's expectations of them to be unrealistic given that they represent only 2.2% of all secondary schools and are already committed to very challenging targets.
- We do not share the DfEE's optimism that the new arrangements for broadening the A-level curriculum will alone resolve the crisis in take-up rates for languages beyond 16.
Despite these reservations we are encouraged by the positive signals in the response and by the proposal to carry forward work on the Nuffield Inquiry's recommendations with a wider group representing other interested government departments. We look forward to receiving details of the group and its remit. Meanwhile the Trustees of the Nuffield Foundation have agreed a continuing investment over the next two years to further the adoption of the Inquiry's messages."
