Schools lose four in five foreign language helpers

The huge decline, thought to be connected to cutbacks, has resulted in a campaign being launched by the cultural relations body British Council Scotland.

It aims to highlight the importance of FLAs, who work by supporting language teachers and educating pupils on current affairs and cultural aspects of their home country.

The Scottish Government wants Scottish pupils to learn at least two languages as well as their mother tongue.

A Languages Working Group will report next spring on how this will be delivered.

Lloyd Anderson, Director of British Council Scotland, which manages the FLA programme with a grant from the Scottish Government, said the country could miss out on “international investment and export opportunities if we simply expect everyone to speak English”.

He added: “Assistants perform a vital role in supporting language teachers by bringing a cultural dimension to language-learning that enthuses and inspires young people.

“Teachers are in no doubt this helps increase linguistic fluency and makes it more likely a young person will continue studying languages to a high level. In an increasingly globalised world, Scotland needs to be outward looking.

“Speaking foreign languages shows our willingness to engage with the wider world, but it also has potentially huge economic benefits.”

The rapid drop in FLAs across state and independent schools has been particularly severe in Scotland. Figures show that over the same period, the fall in England was only 21%.

The decline is thought to be caused by local authorities cutting back school budgets after the ring-fencing on their finances was removed by the Government’s Concordat to get a council tax freeze in 2008.

Just seven of Scotland’s 32 local authorities -- Angus, City of Edinburgh, East Renfrew-shire, Inverclyde, North Ayrshire, North Lanarkshire and Orkney Islands -- now host language assistants.

Large councils, including Glasgow and Aberdeenshire, which formerly took significant numbers of FLAs, will take none this coming year.

British Council Scotland say this is despite the cost of a language assistant falling from £9000 to £7911 per year. One language assistant can be shared across three schools.

Language experts and educationalists have backed the drive, which is launched today to coincide with International Education Week.

Ken Cunningham, General Secretary of School Leaders Scotland, said it was “short-sighted” to remove “one of the key elements of language study” at a time of significant government support for modern languages in schools and the wider society.

He added: “While all of us recognise the hard choices to be made in a time of severe financial restraint, those with influence should think seriously about the impact of such reductions.”

Sarah Breslin, Director of SCILT, Scotland’s National Centre for Languages, said: “Foreign language assistants are in a unique position to support the development of talking and listening skills by providing exposure to authentic language and by creating natural opportunities for real communication.”

Alastair Sim, Director of Universities Scotland, said that starting languages at school was the “best way to learn”.

He added it would “hopefully ensure universities continue to see a steady stream of Scots hungry to learn languages at university several years later”.

A Scottish Government spokeswoman said it welcomed the campaign to “raise the importance of modern languages in schools”. She added: “Indeed, we provide funding to the British Council to support our commitment to modern languages and to the building of international links for our schools, including the foreign language assistants programme.

“We have set up a working group to take forward the implementation of our two-plus-one modern languages programme, that will report in the summer of 2012.”