Answer:
First-degree
Increases:
Spanish and Portuguese students have been constantly increasing
over the past 9 years. Chinese and Japanese have both experienced
increases in numbers in recent years since 2002/3. Modern Middle
Eastern studies students had also been rising since 2002/3. Russian
suffered from large decreases at the end of the 1990s, but 2006-07
saw a slight increase in student numbers compared to 2002-03
(5%).
Decreases:
Italian student numbers have been constantly decreasing over the
past 9 years. Compared to 2002-03, 2006-07 saw a 16% decrease in
first-degree undergraduate student numbers in Italian Studies.
French and German suffered large decreases in student numbers at
the end of the 1990s. The decrease in German is still apparent (10%
decrease in 2006-07 compared to 2002-03), but that in French has
slowed down in recent years (4% decrease in 2006-07 compared to
2002-03).
Postgraduate
Over the
past few years postgraduate numbers have been rising for some
languages and for others numbers are fairly constant or
fluctuating. We could tentatively pick out signs of:
Increases: Modern Middle
Eastern Studies and Chinese
Decreases: German and
Japanese
Data source:
This summary is based on the DfES and CILT
analyses of HESA data (tables downloadable above). HE registrations
data is collected by the Higher Education Statistics Agency
(HESA) from their Student Records of individual enrolments at HE
institutions.
Data warning:
Be aware that languages with smaller student numbers may be more
prone to fluctuation as small changes will have a greater effect on
the percentage change. For actual numbers of each language, please
read the file First degree
student enrolments in the UK, 2002-3 to 2006-7. (Word dic,
95kb)