Languages: Education
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of the supply of teachers of modern foreign languages in English schools.
Answered by Department for Education
High-quality teaching is the in-school factor that has the biggest positive impact on a child’s outcomes. This is why the government is committed to recruiting an additional 6,500 new expert teachers across secondary and special schools, as well as our colleges, over the course of this Parliament. We are already seeing positive signs that our investment is delivering, having achieved over 71% of our target.
As part of our package of support to recruit, retain and develop high-quality modern foreign language (MFL) teachers in secondary schools, we are offering £20,000 tax-free bursaries for MFL trainees. This government inherited a system with critical shortages of these teachers, with the department achieving only 32% of its postgraduate initial teacher training target in 2023/24. We have now improved this and achieved 94% of the target in 2025/26, with 1,378 new trainees having started postgraduate training in MFL compared to 1,179 the year before.
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