A survey of FE colleges throughout the UK as part of CILT's
Language Skills Alliance work.
The findings are based on a 46% response achieved from 139
colleges to date.
Key findings:
- Fewer than half of the FE colleges surveyed across the UK
offer
opportunities to learn languages in or alongside vocational
courses.
- One in four of those colleges that do offer languages has
reduced
its provision, and nearly half expect further decreases in
learner
numbers.
- The survey identified fewer than 2,000 language learners on
vocational study courses in the colleges surveyed.
- Spanish is overwhelmingly the most popular language
offered,
followed by French, Italian and German.There is very little
provision
at all for any other languages.
- Travel and Tourism is the main vocational area to which
language
courses are linked, followed by Business.
- There is some evidence of innovative provision and some
optimism about future prospects for languages in FE.