Part of 1. 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Education – in the Senedd at 2:12 pm on 12 July 2017.
Thank you, Cabinet Secretary. As I’m sure you will have seen, the British Council has recently published their third annual language trends survey of modern foreign languages in Welsh secondary schools, the results of which, I am sure you will agree, are very worrying. The survey comes just 18 months into the plan, which is aimed at promoting modern foreign languages in Wales, but in reality we have witnessed the continuing diminishing status of modern foreign languages in Welsh schools. In fact, the report tells us that between 2002 and 2016 the number of pupils studying a foreign language at GCSE level has declined by 48 per cent, and more than a third of Welsh schools have less than 10 per cent of year 10 pupils studying a foreign language. In light of the report’s results, Cabinet Secretary, what more can we do to realise the Government’s ambition for Wales to become a ‘bilingual plus 1’ country?