Scottish Government wants children to learn 2 foreign languages - better late than never!

“The world is changing rapidly and radically and the Government has a duty to ensure that Scottish schools prepare young people so they can flourish and succeed in the globalised, multi-lingual world we now live in. One indisputable aspect of modern life is that more people travel widely for jobs and leisure and we must respond accordingly; we will not be as successful as a country and economy if we remain essentially a mono-lingual society."

Congratulation to the Scottish Government for finally catching up! 

Today's announcement from Minister for Learning Alasdair Allan is a welcome one even though it is a bit late! The Scottish Government has finally adopted a plan to try and help school children learn two foreign languages, one of which should start when children are in Primary 1.

As his statement goes on to mention, the EU suggests that member states should encourage citizens to adopt a 2+1 approach to language learning- two foreign languages + native language - so that they can function in a multilingual Europe where labour markets are fluid and ever-changing.

The only problem is that this goal was set by the EU back in 2002! Now I don't want to be one of those people who try and turn every positive into a negative, but the proposal is hardly ground-breaking and comes at a time when language education in Scotland - and indeed in the whole UK - is in an appalling state.

As we grapple to rebuild the economy and guarantee prosperity for future generations, we have a largely monolingual population with poor communication skills and a general ignorance of European culture and affairs, never mind Chinese, Indian or Brazilian culture. If we can’t already communicate with Europe how can we begin to communicate with developing economic powers?

As usual, the policy is too little too late. Instead of investing a small fortune into Gaelic education (for a language which was never the language of Scotland as a whole) the Scottish Government should have spent it on modern foreign language education.  When we have a nation that can communicate with the outside world then we can afford the luxury of learning minority languages like Gaelic. Don’t get me wrong, we should protect minority languages, but we also need to establish our priorities.

So well done Scottish Government, a step in the right direction, albeit a few steps behind the rest of Europe!