Executive summary
20 May 2002

We share the Government's aspirations to reform 14-19 education and to raise standards – but we are not persuaded that what is proposed in the Green Paper will deliver these aspirations. Indeed, we believe that its implementation would fail large numbers of young people by denying them a sufficiently broad and balanced education.

We have grave doubts about the wisdom of asking pupils to make critical choices about the content of as much as 50% of their curriculum at the age of 13. The suggestion that the inherent dangers can be counteracted with good advice is not convincing.

Implementing the proposals would have catastrophic implications for languages. The remedy to current difficulties with languages education is to improve it, not reduce its status in the curriculum. A world-class education system preparing young people for life in the 21st century must reflect the fact that the world we live in is multilingual. The UK cannot afford a system that reduces languages to an élite accomplishment, available principally to those educated in independent schools.

The role of languages in enhancing employability appears to have been underestimated. Whichever career path young people choose, they will need the skills that make them employable in a world where recruitment is increasingly global, where flexibility and mobility are at a premium. As a nation we owe it to them to ensure that they do not lose out in the jobs market to better educated and linguistically qualified candidates from other countries.

Removing languages from the core curriculum would lead to an immediate and substantial fall in the number of young people learning a language after the age of 14. Evidence to support this is already emerging: some schools, apparently encouraged by official guidelines , are pre-empting the consultation process, offering languages as an option - and recruiting very low numbers.

The effects of a large-scale reduction in the number of post-14 learners would constitute a serious setback for the national languages capacity. A narrower range of languages would be offered in schools. The numbers of 16-18 year olds learning a language would fall even lower than their present levels, leading to acceleration in the decline of numbers opting for language degrees and increasing the rate at which university language departments would be closed.

The number of UK graduates going into language teaching would be even further reduced and the crisis in teacher supply exacerbated. The UK already relies on overseas recruitment for around 40% of its language teaching force.

We are in no sense defending the status quo. It is our view that there is a more appropriate alternative to the current proposals. We suggest the development of a system based on the guiding principles of the baccalaureate, which has been widely adopted in other countries as the best mechanism for combining flexibility and choice with a broad and balanced education.

The system we envisage would incorporate a number of well-characterised 14-19 learning programmes, each with its own curricular specification. Programmes would allow space for individual choice, but the principal element of choice would be between discrete programmes. The problem of the academic/vocational divide could be resolved by developing programmes that explicitly resist this tendency. Employers and/or Sector Skills Councils could be involved in the strategic planning of vocational programmes.

We consider it essential that all young people should continue with language learning throughout their 14-19 education. The system outlined above could embrace a more ambitious and flexible approach to languages and meet the needs, abilities and interests of different groups of learners. What is required is major curriculum development, recognising the distinction between language provision appropriate as preliminary training for those going on to further study of languages and that needed by everyone for life in the 21st century.

An earlier start to language learning is crucial. By this, we do not mean occasional, minimal or out of hours teaching but languages embedded in the primary curriculum, so that all children – not just a favoured few – can have a flying start at a receptive age. It is unacceptable that the majority of children with access to language learning in the primary sector come from higher socio-economic groups. There is little reason to suppose that the introduction of an 'entitlement' to language learning would alter the situation.

An unspecific entitlement to language learning in primary schools does not compensate for the abolition of language requirements beyond the age of 14. Language learning fully integrated into the curriculum at a young age might well transform pupil motivation and reduce the need to make languages compulsory beyond 14. However, removing the compulsory label should wait until the primary provision is in place and the outcome demonstrated. As it stands, the proposal to make languages optional from 14 is likely to pre-date the completion of the primary school initiative by at least eight years, leaving a generation of pupils with a mere three years of statutory provision.

Sir Trevor McDonald OBE
Sir Leonard Appleyard KCMG
Sir John Boyd KCMG
Peter Downes OBE
Professor Michael Kelly
Alwena Lamping
Alan Moys
Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve CBE FBA
Quentin Peel
Anthony Tomei
Kathy Wicksteed
Hugh Morgan Williams

Click on the download link above left to read the Steering Group's Response in full (pdf format).

You might also like to read the responses from the organisations listed below. We will add to these as more become available.

British Academy:
http://www.britac.ac.uk/news/reports/0206languages1.html

Association for Language Learning (ALL):
http://www.all-languages.org.uk/14-19_green_paper.htm

University Council of Modern Languages:
www.ucml.org.uk/members/Green_Paper_Response.rtf (rtf format, 39KB)

Centre for Information on Language Teaching (CILT):
www.cilt.org.uk/green_paper_response.htm

Association for French Language Studies:
http://www.unl.ac.uk/sals/afls/DfES_consultation.htm