Blog: English is not Enough

16th May 2011

It was reported in The Times recently that Britain is sliding towards a humiliating decline in its contribution to world affairs because of dwindling foreign language teaching and a generally dismissive and short-sighted attitude to languages.

Although the plan was for language lessons to become mandatory in all primary schools from next year, this was quietly dropped during the parliamentary “wash-up” process before the recent general election. Ironically, if the decline continues, perhaps the only job available to school-leavers will be in washing up!

Furthermore, since 2004 when language study became optional in 75% of state schools from the age of 14, the number of teenagers taking language GCSEs has fallen by a third. As a result of this, a third of university modern languages departments have closed in the past seven years, leading to employers recruiting from overseas to cover their language needs if they can’t find the skills among UK school-leavers or graduates.

What does this mean to the economy? It has been suggested that because of the lack of language skills in the UK workforce, the country could be losing up to £21 billion a year in lost contracts. Interestingly, export businesses using language skills report increased sales of 45 per cent.

On a global level, it is easy to see that English alone is not enough. Only 6 per cent of the world’s population have English as their mother tongue, while 75 per cent speak no English at all. Meanwhile, Chinese internet content has risen from 5 to 20 per cent. By contrast, the amount of internet traffic in English has declined from 51 to 29 per cent.

Rather than relying on machine translation and mobile phones loaded with translation apps, the new UK government needs to act, together with schools, universities and employers, to ensure young people have a measure of modern language competence. The alternative is an increasing competitive disadvantage in the global economy, a decline in our ability to contribute to and function in international bodies, and a lifetime of washing up.