Part of 1. 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Education – in the Senedd at 2:19 pm on 12 July 2017.
The Member tempts me, Presiding Officer; the Member really does tempt me. But, you’re right, we do need to promote modern foreign languages within our schools, and that’s why we have extended the student mentoring project with Cardiff, Swansea, Bangor and Aberystwyth universities. We have over a quarter of schools working in that programme, where bright, sparky, enthusiastic undergraduates go into schools to provide that buzz around languages that we need to create to encourage pupils, before they’ve made their choices on GCSE, that this is something that they can enjoy, something they can be good at, and can give them really life-enhancing work and personal skills. We also have to ensure that the quality of language teaching is as good as it can be, and, as I said, whilst the figures in the report are concerning, it’s not all bad news. This year, two of the three German teacher of the year awards were awarded to teachers who are teaching German in Welsh schools.