UK business groups call for more foreign-language teaching in colleges

Students in a foreign-language class learning Spanish. Photograph: Martin Godwin/The Guardian

Business groups and language experts are calling on ministers to make linguistic skills a core part of vocational training, after research found young people are unable to study languages at large numbers of further education colleges.

A report by the British Academy published on Monday, shows that despite the importance of linguistic skills in many jobs, the ability to learn French, German or Spanish, let alone less common languages, has become a postcode lottery.