Languages ‘essential for students’

STUDENTS should be taught more languages and from an earlier age, employers organisation IBEC claimed yesterday.

Recent reports to the Government have highlighted the lack of variety in languages available to second-level students, with three-quarters of those who chose a language subject for last year’s Leaving Certificate studying French.

IBEC’s assistant director of enterprise Caroline Nash said foreign languages should be made compulsory for the country’s 440,000 primary pupils. Latest OECD figures show they receive less tuition in foreign languages than those of other developed countries.