<p>Learning New Languages</p>

Part of 2. 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:15 pm on 11 July 2017.

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Photo of Carwyn Jones Carwyn Jones Labour 2:15, 11 July 2017

Well, ‘Global Futures’, remember, is a five-year plan that’s aimed at improving and promoting modern foreign languages. So, the judgment of that will be after five years. There is no question that there will be a need for our students to develop foreign language skills in the future. One of the issues around Brexit that has not yet been properly understood or explored is that English is per se the second language of people in the European Union. If the UK leaves, the influence of English starts to diminish. What does that mean? It may mean nothing, but we don't know what that will mean in terms of other languages becoming more predominant then within Europe and the need for our own children and young people to learn those languages as a result. It’s why, of course, ‘Global Futures’ was published in October 2015 with a view, of course, to improving the situation markedly by 2020.