Decline in foreign language assistants 10/12/11
Jamie McGrigor, Highlands & Islands Conservative MSP, has urged the Scottish Government to take action to reverse the decline in the number of foreign language assistants (FLAs) in Scotland’s schools.
He made the call at Education Question Time in the Scottish Parliament.
The number of FLAs working in Scotland’s schools has fallen from nearly 300 in 2005-
This is a decline of nearly 80% in just six years and Scotland now hosts only 3% of UK FLAs, a far smaller number than if we were to take our share of population.
Mr McGrigor said: “ I believe that foreign language assistants have a very important role to play, not only in helping our children improve their modern language skills but also in helping them to increase their awareness of foreign countries and different cultures, something which is important economically as well.
“ I welcome the recent intervention on this subject by the Consuls General of France, Germany, Spain, Italy and China which highlights the importance of this issue.
“Ministers need to ensure that local authorities do not see cutting foreign language assistants as an easy spending cut to make in these times of real pressure on council spending.”