Are languages disappearing from Scotland's schools?

What do the official statistics show?

Over the last twenty years, the overall number of young people studying French, Spanish, Italian and German in the final years of secondary school has fallen significantly. Last year, a total of 5620 students were entered for those subjects at Higher (level 6), having fallen from 7173 in 2013 and 8100 in 2003. That’s an overall drop of more than 30%, and most of it happened in the last ten years.

At Advanced Higher (level 7) the drop over time is smaller but the pattern is repeated. Between 2003 and 2013 the entries for those same four languages were basically stable, slipping by just a single percentage point, but in the subsequent decade numbers fell by more than 10%, meaning that there are now fewer than 1000 pupils in the whole country attempting the highest level of high school qualifications in this crucial area.

At the level below Higher, the language learning has seen a massive and utterly undeniable collapse. Changes to qualifications over time make comparisons at this level a little more complicated, with the single National 5 having replaced both Standard Grade and Intermediate 2 courses ten years ago. When all relevant ‘level 5’ students are compared, however, we see an overall drop of more than 70% between 2003 and 2023.

But the changes are not uniform across all four European languages. While French, German and Italian entries have fallen, and in some cases plummeted, the opposite is true for Spanish: level 5 entries have nearly doubled in the last twenty years, while the numbers sitting Higher and Advanced Higher have increased by 150% and 200% respectively in the same period. This year, Spanish was the most popular language at Higher for the first time and is on course to do the same at National 5 and Advanced Higher level in the coming years.

Why is this happening?

The most obvious reason for the decline in the number of young people studying languages is that doing so until the end of fourth year is no longer compulsory.

Under Scotland’s previous qualifications system, all pupils learned a language as one of their Standard Grades, completing either the Credit / General or General / Foundation level of study – and the vast majority, as readers may remember, were required to study French. This helps to explain why nearly 33000 young people studied a level 5 French course (Intermediate 2 or Credit / General Standard Grade) in 2003, but just under 12000 did the same a decade later, with that number falling to fewer than 7000 students by last year.

In addition to the end of compulsion, the introduction of the new qualifications as part of the Curriculum for Excellence has led to a reduction in the number of subjects that fourth year pupils tend to complete: whereas almost all used to sit eight Standard Grade courses, it is now much more common for pupils to study six National 5s.

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With young people no longer required to study a language, and fewer options available to them each year, the sorts of seismic changes we are now witnessing were always a distinct possibility. Many languages teachers warned at the time that they were an inevitability. 

Fewer students completing level 5 courses also has obvious consequences for the subsequent levels of study, so it is no surprise to see that the number of Higher French students declined by more than 50%, or that the numbers studying Advanced Higher fell by nearly a third, over the same period.

In 2003, German was the second most popular language taught in schools, and the end of compulsory language learning has led to declines in this subject that are comparable to those recorded for French.

The number of students completing Italian courses was always much lower than those learning French, German and Spanish, but the gap has now become even more severe. In 2003, 614 pupils completed a level 5 Italian courses – by 2023, that number had fallen to just 155. Interestingly, however, the numbers studying Higher Italian have remained much more stable and now outstrip those completing the lower level of qualification.

What about language learning in primary and lower secondary?

In Scotland, schools follow a language-teaching policy known as ‘1+2’.

Introduced in 2013, this approach seeks to “create the conditions to provide all children and young people with an entitlement to learn two additional languages” throughout primary school and the first half of secondary school.

The policy states that a first additional language (referred to as L2) “should be taught continuously from P1 through to the end of S3.” As this language must also be one in which students could go on to complete National, Higher and Advanced Higher qualifications, schools must choose from French, Spanish, German, Italian, Gaelic, Urdu, Mandarin, or Cantonese.

According to a recent Scottish Government survey, 69% of Scotland’s primary schools are fully meeting the requirements around the ‘L2 entitlement’, with a further 29% reported to be offering ‘partial’ provision. The overwhelming majority of schools in both categories teach French.

Primary schools are then expected to introduce a second additional language (L3) by primary 5 “at the latest”, with secondary schools expected to do the same thing “at some point” during the period from S1-S3. There is no restriction on which languages can be taught in this context, with the government pointing out that options include “British Sign Language (BSL), Latin, Scots and community languages.”

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This second additional language is unlikely to be taught continuously from primary 5 until the end of S3, and pupils may instead be exposed to several different languages, and cultures, in a more limited way.

Official data suggests that 64% of primary schools are managing to deliver the L3 entitlement to their pupils. The most common choice is Spanish, followed by French, German, Mandarin, Gaelic, BSL and Scots.

At secondary levels, an almost identical proportion of schools are managing to offer either full or partial provision of the L2 entitlement, with French still by far the most popular option. In terms of the L3 entitlement, secondaries are doing even better than primary schools, with 87.5% able to provide it. Once again, Spanish is the most popular choice.

So are things all as bad as they seem?

At one of the schooling process, language learning appears to be in serious – if not universal – decline; at the other, more and more young people are, at least in theory, more exposed to languages than ever before.

From one angle we’re well on our way to an educational and cultural disaster, but from the opposite perspective there might be cause for hope.

According to Fhiona Mackay, Director of Scotland’s National Centre for Languages, the full context makes things even more complicated.

Scotland, she explains, is actually “faring better than other parts of the UK” when it comes to the apparent decline in language learning. She also argues that the picture in other European countries is not as rosy as many assume, because “the domination of English” means that they are experiencing “the same decline in the uptake of languages other than English.”

She also suggests that we need to think more deeply about the changing numbers being entered for qualifications, especially at Level 5. Perhaps part of the problem comes from the assumption that larger, historic figures are automatically better, even when they were being achieved by force. Maybe it’s better to have 10000 young people enthusiastically studying National 5 French than it ever was to have upwards of 30000 compelled to complete a Standard Grade?

Some have certainly argued for a return to compulsory language learning, but Mackay is not convinced.

“I have concerns about that approach.  It would certainly result in “bums on seats” for National 4 and National 5 courses, but that in itself is not enough to produce a nation of linguistically competent, globally aware young people.  If we are agreed that languages are such a good thing - which they are - we should be able to win hearts and minds rather than conscript.”

Another factor is that – as is so often the case – this isn’t just about what happens in schools. Mackay argues that we also need to think about the pathways available to young people.

“Language learning in colleges is almost non-existent,” she points out. “Yet sectors such as tourism and hospitality are crying out for language skills, especially post-Brexit.  Likewise, university provision is also reducing with the announcement that the University of Aberdeen is considering the discontinuation of languages degrees.  This is potentially a disaster for language learning in the north of the country, making it impossible for many young people to study a language at the university nearest to their homes.”

Despite this, Mackay remains optimistic about the future of languages in Scottish education. The 1+2 policy, she tells me, has helped to drive ground-breaking changes in some schools and, over the long term, will hopefully contribute to a resurgence in the number of young people choosing to study one or more languages throughout their time in education and even beyond.

But she is also keen to stress that ongoing action is needed.

“Now the implementation period is over, we can’t just tick a box and move on the next area of curriculum that needs support,” she insists. “For the policy to have a legacy, we need to turn our gaze to the senior phase and our government needs to create a climate that fosters the uptake of languages.  At the very least, we need a national campaign that makes explicit the benefits that languages bring to individuals and societies wherever they are spoken, learned, and used.

“It is not an impossible task, but it will take collaboration, effort, and careful consideration if we are to turn things around.”