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| David Lammy responds to the Worton Report on Modern Languages |
| Tuesday, 01 December 2009 |
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Here is a speech David delivered on the 1st December 2009 in response to the Wortohn Report on Modern Languages.
David delivered this speech in his capacity as Minister of State for Higher Education and Intellectual Property.
"Thank you and good afternoon everyone.
Languages matter because words and the perspectives on the world that they represent matter. The more of those perspectives we can take in, the richer and more rounded we are likely to be as human beings.
I don’t think you need to be a professional linguist to understand that.
My work in the law and in politics has been an education not just in the power of words and ideas, but also in the diversity of viewpoints that language can express. And my life as a Londoner, living here in a city where 250 languages are spoken, has shown me that English is not the only tongue capable of giving expression to unique, valuable or beautiful insights.
So often in history, language has been a wall that separates people from each other, a barrier to mutual comprehension and a source of distrust. To break down that wall by learning another language is not just to find a new means of communication, but also to gain an alternative way of understanding the world and how it works.
Anyone who sees languages in that way cannot consider the promotion of language-learning as anything other than a priority for our education system. And I certainly want language skills to be recognised as a key contributor to our country’s success, now and in the future.
We cannot afford to ignore the fact that 75 per cent of the world’s population does not speak English. And even if we could, there is no virtue in showing an Anglo-centric face to a world that is much more complex than that.
Global ambitions, whether in commerce or in political influence, require global perspectives. And they in turn require our knowledge and use of languages other than English has to be nurtured and encouraged to grow.
Without this growth in language learning, we stand in danger of losing much that is valuable to us.
Our business competitiveness and our ability to attract inward investment will fall.
Our ability to research in collaboration with non English-speaking countries will decline.
And British people will be unable to compete for jobs in an increasingly open European labour-market.
I’ve met people who think of languages as an irrelevance, or at best as an afterthought to be tacked onto the end of a CV. Of course, they’re hopelessly wrong.
More and more businesses operate in more than one country. In those companies, staff need to spend time working abroad and speaking other languages if they are to gain promotion and get on in life. If we fail, as a country, to embrace language learning, we will set arbitrary limits on people’s aspirations and on their scope to achieve social mobility.
In that context, the recent CBI report Stronger together: Businesses and universities in turbulent times is required reading. It reminds us that the skills of language graduates are not just needed for interpreting and translation careers. They are important in global businesses and industry.
I quote: “Language skills are also important in an increasingly globalised workplace. Students should be striving to develop these skills which…are not an optional extra”.
In view of all this, it’s just as well that languages are not dying out in Britain. On the contrary. Today, you can hear more different languages spoken in this country than at any time in our history. And, as I’ve already said, there’s no better place to see that for yourself than here in London, the most linguistically diverse city on earth.
Moreover, more British children are growing up bilingual than ever before. Indeed, a recent survey of almost a million school-age children in London found that fewer than three-quarters of them speak English at home.
That’s not a cause for alarm, but for celebration.
Yet much of the rhetoric that has surrounded language-learning in this country is predominantly downbeat and defeatist.
And I don’t deny that there are some understandable reasons why languages are described by some people as being in decline.
I know that there remain concerns about the policy which permits 14 year olds to choose not to study a language at GCSE. And it’s certainly true that numbers of GCSE entrants in languages have been falling for nearly a decade.
But there are clear signs that the standards for languages at GCSE are improving now that compulsion is no longer there. We are encouraging languages in secondary schools through revitalising the curriculum for 11-14 year olds. And in 2011, it will become compulsory for primary schools to offer a language, as more than 90 per cent already do.
And the picture also looks much brighter at A level, where numbers of language entrants have been rising since 2005. And that ought to be feeding through into more demand for higher-level learning of languages.
Of course, it makes it much harder to take an optimistic view of the future of modern languages in universities when some vice-chancellors and their governing bodies decide to cut back or close departments, or to curtail the range of courses on offer.
I know, too, that some institutions have come to see their role in language studies as offering basic language modules for the generality of students rather than full degrees for specialists. And there’s a place for that sort of thing.
I welcome the work that is done by language centres up and down the country giving students studying other subjects the chance to add some French or Spanish to their skill set. But this must not be seen as any sort of substitute for fully-fledged teaching of high-level language skills, backed up by excellent research. We need to produce not just more linguists, but better linguists as well. And we need the understanding of the cultures, histories and politics and economics of the countries where they are spoken that only rigorous scholarship can give us.
These are all reasons why we’re here today. This event is about how we can move forward together in the context of the current state of modern languages and the recommendations in Michael Worton’s report.
I don’t pretend that Michael’s findings make entirely comfortable reading for any of us. But that’s all the more reason to take them seriously.
In particular, I’d like to hear what you think of the messages about languages that the Government gives out.
I know they haven’t always been welcome to many of you. Last year’s Research Assessment Exercise and its effects on language departments has been a particular bone of contention.
Detailed allocations of the quality-related block grant for research are of course a matter for HEFCE.
But I understand that the total amount of funding for each subject reflects the total volume of research in that subject submitted in the RAE. Volumes of language research grew at a smaller rate than in other research areas overall and so this is reflected in shares of funding.
People are understandably focusing on the year on year change in funding. But this year we are seeing a change to funding that reflects the relative volume changes since the 2001 RAE. Over that period the block grant has been steadily rising. In fact, for languages overall, it has risen by 4 per cent in real terms since 2002.
Last year’s RAE actually represented a very good outcome for some languages, like Arabic, Chinese and Japanese. But there’s no reason for it to have placed any department in these or other languages under threat.
I note, too, that Michael’s report argues that linguists in universities themselves could do more to ensure not just the survival but also the success of their departments. He says that they could make more of their successes and do more to convince university leaders of their value, for example, by emphasising their contribution to institutions’ international strategies.
I’d be interested to hear your views on that.
I know as well that some vice-chancellors have misinterpreted the need for the Government to invest in subjects like science, technology, engineering and maths that give the greatest economic return as a lack of commitment to other subjects. And that, of course, has created problems of its own. Over the last ten years, we’ve lost about a third of our languages capacity in higher education.
I don’t like seeing departments close and study options disappear and I don’t believe that the Government’s or HEFCE’s funding decisions have made that inevitable. But I can’t stop university authorities from taking management decisions. You know that the Government’s role in this is not an interventionist one and how protective of their autonomy universities rightly are.
I also want to hear your ideas on any actions we in Government can take to boost demand for university-level language studies. Because ultimately, only demand from prospective students can keep subjects sustainable.
Of course, we already have initiatives like our Routes into Languages programme which is encouraging pupils to learn languages and to enjoy the experience. The signs to date are that this is starting to have a real impact.
But I’m in no doubt that we could do more.
In particular, we must counteract the perception that the Government does not take language learning seriously. We do and we want to demonstrate this. That is why I welcome the recommendation in the report that there should be a forum to provide “clear, coherent messages” and to develop a communications strategy for them.
I want to take my share of the responsibility for this work, and that’s why I can announce today that my DCSF colleague Diana Johnson and I have agreed to chair the new forum jointly.
I’ve talked this afternoon both about some of the challenges that modern language studies face and about how necessary it is to find ways of overcoming them. But now I know that Michael and Chris are as anxious as I am to hear what you think and to answer any questions you’d like to ask.
Thank you."
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