Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if her Department will take steps to encourage schools to teach Japanese as a foreign language.

Since September 2014, maintained primary schools in England must teach a modern or ancient foreign language to pupils at Key Stage 2 (ages 7 to 11). Maintained secondary schools must teach a modern foreign language to pupils at Key Stage 3

(ages 11 to 14). Schools can choose which languages to teach.

The Government is committed to increasing the proportion of the population gaining language qualifications at Key Stages 4 and 5, including Japanese. As a result of the English Baccalaureate (EBacc), the number of students in state-funded mainstream schools studying a language at GCSE has increased from 40% in 2010 to 49% in 2016.

In August we confirmed that EBacc entry would become a headline measure in school performance tables from this year, alongside EBacc achievement. This will encourage schools to enter more pupils for the EBacc and for languages in future, which should increase the pool of potential people studying languages at A level and beyond.

The Government also supports the efforts of the Japan Foundation to help schools teach Japanese. The Japan Foundation encourages and offers support to schools by providing teacher training, resources and financial assistance of up to £3,000 for schools wanting to develop Japanese teaching.