Employers: Make foreign languages compulsory

Foreign languages should be made compulsory at primary schools to give children across the country a head-start, it was urged today.

The Irish Business and Employers Confederation (IBEC) said the Government must make more effort to drag Ireland up from its poor ratings in terms of the foreign-language abilities of primary-school students.

Caroline Nash, assistant director of enterprise at IBEC, said a wider range of languages should also be made available at secondary school.

“Currently there are 390 primary schools offering foreign languages as part of the primary schools project in modern languages. This number needs to increase so that all primary school children get the best possible start,” Ms Nash said.

“The Government’s Modern Languages in Primary Schools pilot programme should be integrated into the mainstream curriculum and made available to all primary schools.”

As students across the country prepare to sit their Junior and Leaving Certificate Spanish exams today, Ms Nash stressed that last year only 4% of students sitting a foreign language paper took the Spanish exam.

Ms Nash said low numbers were studying the language for examination in Ireland despite there being 332 million native Spanish speakers in the world.

She contrasted this with French – which accounts for 75% of the language examination papers sat, despite there being only 72 million native speakers.

Ms Nash said the breakdown of all foreign-language papers taken in the Leaving Certificate last year showed 75% sitting French, 20% taking German, 4% Spanish and only 0.5% taking Italian.

Indicators from an OECD report in 2001 placed Ireland last in a list of 11 countries in terms of the foreign-language ability of primary school pupils.

In 2000, the Education Department launched the Post-Primary Languages Initiative, which is now operating in more than 400 schools, to improve the teaching of languages in second-level schools – with Spanish, Italian, Japanese and Russian the target languages.

A new report by the Expert Group on Future Skills Needs released earlier this month warned that foreign-language training must be integrated into all primary schools to boost the numbers of staff in Ireland with a knowledge of other languages.

Ms Nash said: “While it is true that many continental businesspeople have fluent English, it is obvious that an exporter who can speak the language of the marketplace has a clear advantage over a competitor who does not.”

She highlighted the need to increase the range of languages taught in post-primary schools to reflect the modern communications systems.

IBEC said that, in order to negotiate and transact business in languages other than English, the learning of foreign tongues must begin at the earliest possible age.

“Language is not simply a means of communication. It is a very important means of establishing and maintaining relationships with other people.

"The value of language skills should not be undervalued, particularly in a business context. Many a great business deal has been clinched on the basis of good communication and relationship,” Ms Nash said.