UCU responds to Lord Dearing's languages review

 UCU joint general secretary, Sally Hunt, said: 'We are pleased that Lord Dearing has recommended language classes for young children and the government is backing his plans. However, there is much more that needs to be done to get pupils and students studying languages, including finding and maintaining the necessary staff and expertise required.

'UCU's own research recently revealed that language provision French, German and Italian in our universities has dropped significantly over the past decade - a situation that is unlikely to improve after the scrapping of compulsory language classes for 14-16-year olds.

'There is no escaping the fact that the widespread closure of modern language courses in our universities is leading to students facing restricted choices if they do want to study languages. We need to be encouraging future linguists, especially as future researchers and teachers.

'Without those teachers we will witness a terminal decline in students of all ages studying languages, which will damage our civil society and impact on how we interact with the rest of the world.'