IPPN

FOREIGN languages should be made compulsory in primary schools and a wider range of languages should be available at post-primary level, the employers' body IBEC has suggested.

"Currently there are 390 primary schools offering foreign languages as part of the primary schools project in modern languages. This number needs to increase," said Caroline Nash of IBEC.

She quoted the latest OECD indicators, which showed that Ireland rated last of 11 countries for foreign language ability of primary school students.

Ms Nash said that the Government's Modern Languages in Primary Schools pilot programme should be made available to all primary schools.

Turning to post-primary schools she said that the range of languages available needed to reflect the reality of modern communications.

"Last year only 4pc of students who sat a foreign language paper took the Spanish exam compared to 75pc in French. Yet, Spanish is the second most spoken language in the world after Mandarin Chinese. It is estimated that there are 332 million native Spanish speakers in the world, compared to 72 million native French speakers."

Last year the breakdown of foreign language papers in the Leaving Certificate was: French 75pc, German 20pc, Spanish 4pc and Italian 0.5pc.

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