A new campaign, called Speak to the Future, has been launched with the support of over 30 organisations. The campaign calls for urgent action on policy to safeguard and revitalise language learning across all phases of education in order to boost educational and career opportunities for young people and our ability to compete in the global economy. Campaigners have united to send a powerful public message highlighting the vital national importance of foreign language capacity in today’s global world.

Baroness Jean Coussins, who chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group on modern languages, welcomed the campaign and said: ‘A national languages recovery programme is needed to improve the quality of our children’s education, their future employment prospects and the influence of the UK on the international stage. ‘

The campaign has five key aims, designed to create a coherent approach to language learning across all phases of education:

1. Every language valued as an asset
2. A coherent experience of languages for all children in primary school
3. A basic working knowledge of at least two languages including English for every child leaving
4. secondary school
5. Every graduate qualified in a second language
6. An increase in the number of highly qualified linguists

Further details are available from http://www.speaktothefuture.org/