Languages for social mobility

The recent report by Alan Milburn on fair entry into the professions identifies a lot of barriers to wider access. It doesn’t mention the language barrier though. Perhaps that is because languages are an invisible factor in social mobility.

All the evidence shows that learning languages at school tends to be concentrated in a narrow social range. Independent schools have no problem in maintaining language learning, but many state secondary schools are abandoning languages altogether from age 14. It appears that over half the people who enter one of the main professions went to an independent school, and therefore have a reasonable grounding in one or more languages. Perhaps there is a link here?

Not many professions have an explicit language requirement, but they do have a typical profile, and that generally involves a rounded education including a language. You might add that what languages give is a degree of personal confidence and access to a wider cultural experience that makes today’s professionals feel at ease in the international environment they inhabit. Ask the médecins sans frontières.