Ciarán Lynch (Cork South Central, Labour)

I thank the Ceann Comhairle's office for allowing me to raise this matter on the Adjournment. In 2002 the EU set a target of becoming the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world. In 2012 the Commission will review the progress made by member countries in this regard. When examined, Ireland may well be one of the member states scrutinised for non-implementation of the objectives set out by the Commission. Moreover, Ireland is not taking part in a current survey on language skills which will feed into a Europe-wide indicator on language competence at secondary level.

If Ireland is to have any aspiration of becoming one of the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economies in the world, we need to do much better in ensuring students can speak a greater range of languages. If we are truly to achieve greater social cohesion while also sustaining economic growth and the creation of jobs, education policy in general and language learning in particular are crucial. A Eurobarometer study in 2010 showed that 40% of recruiters in the industry sector highlighted the importance of language skills for future higher education graduates. Despite a slight uptake by Irish students of foreign languages in recent years, numbers are not increasing steadily enough to meet the demand from industry. There is a real risk that we are becoming over-reliant on the fact that in everyday work, English is our first and only language.

A recent document produced by the European Parliament's Committee on Culture and Education concluded that modern business is facing a complex world where a lack of language skills can represent real barriers. At present there is high demand by SMEs across Europe for multilingual speakers. However, this demand is not being met by Irish educational institutions. Conducting a job search on the website www.jobs.ie clearly demonstrates the requirement in Ireland for modern languages such as German, French, Spanish and Italian in banking and finance, accounting, sales and marketing, programming and information technology, customer services, legal services, and the tourism and travel sectors. Despite this, an insufficient awareness of the importance of foreign language acquisition has caused a number of language programmes at third level to be closed, including degrees in software development with French or German. Students are not being sufficiently encouraged to study languages. Many science and engineering programmes do not offer students the option to take a language at any stage of their course, even though Irish graduates with such qualifications are in high demand across Europe, North America and elsewhere. Once a programme or even a module is dropped, it is very difficult to reinstate it for budgetary reasons. It is becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy where subjects that are not encouraged are falling off the curriculum and their budgets disappearing in due course. In the case of some business degree programmes, as a direct result of modularisation, languages are competing as elective modules against other subjects and this competition is leading to a decrease in language take-up.

Foreign language skills must be promoted at third level as an essential component of science, engineering and business degrees, as well as of more traditional arts and humanities degrees. Work placement and study abroad programmes are experiencing cuts in funding. In response, the Government must campaign for greater funding to be allocated to work and study placement programmes, such as Leonardo and Erasmus. Furthermore, the modernisation of the leaving certificate science syllabi and other aspects of the leaving certificate programme, which are on the agenda for review of the Department of Education and Skills, must embrace foreign language acquisition as part of a strategy for economic recovery.

A report published in March by the Expert Group on Future Skills Needs states:

Where job vacancies arise, jobseekers with third level qualifications coupled with work experience and foreign language skills were more likely to be in demand by employers. This underlines the need for jobseekers to engage in upskilling and for the education and training system to continually align with the skills needs of enterprise.

If Ireland wants to talk business, we must up our game in teaching languages. The time to act is now.

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