This week’s National 5 results in Scotland - broadly comparable to GCSEs in England, Northern Ireland and Wales - show more needs to be done to retain learners at key transition points.
The British Council’s research provides a UK-wide picture with corresponding reports for each nation, and it shows that Scotland is not immune to decreasing appetite for language learning.
While four in 10 young people in England take a modern language for GCSE, the comparable figure for National 5 in Scotland is thought to be smaller, given that out of 333,995 National 5 entries in total for 2025, 14,885 were in French, German, Italian and Spanish, compared with more than 50,000 entries for English (taken by almost all of the age 15-16 cohort).
Scotland a ‘linguistic powerhouse’
Scotland is, in fact, a linguistic powerhouse, with more than one in every 20 learners having English as an additional language and all learners having had access to a rich language learning experience through the well-conceived “1+2” approach to modern languages during the - a policy that means Scottish pupils should begin studying two languages in primary school, in addition to their language of instruction.
Yet entries for National 5 qualifications in the big three of French, German and Spanish have collectively declined over the past 10 years - somewhat surprising, given the growing language capital of Scotland’s learners.
While Spanish has grown to be the most popular language at National 5 - mirroring England and Northern Ireland, but not Wales, where French continues to lead - this in no way compensates for losses in French and German. Availability of qualifications to learners of heritage languages is patchy, with fewer than a third of schools facilitating such exams, although the British Council’s work in Scotland shows that teachers do their best to foster a multilingual mindset.
French is the most-taught language in S1 and S2 in Scotland, taught to all learners in more than 70 per cent of schools. Spanish is the second-most-taught language, taught to all in 46 per cent of schools in S1, and 59 per cent in S2. This is similar in England and Wales while, in , Spanish has also overtaken French in the equivalent of S1-2. Last week’s National 5 results show that Spanish is thus retaining more learners in the of school education - the same situation as in .
Meanwhile, declines in German learners are noted across the UK-- a state of affairs that could be economically detrimental, as Germany is the UK’s second-largest trading partner. The is trying to reverse this decline through strategic programmes to develop German language learning at school level.
Timetabling constraints
Language Trends Scotland 2025 revealed that timetabling constraints inhibit learners in more than 50 per cent of schools from taking a language in S4, and classes do not run in a similar number of schools if there are not enough learners. A third of teachers report that there are fewer learners taking languages in S4 than three years ago, so it is likely that the noted decline will continue in the near future. In some schools, learners are choosing their qualification subjects as early as the end of S2.
One significant difference between Scotland and the other UK nations has been the total absence of language assistants - native (often young professional) speakers of French, German, Italian, Mandarin Chinese or Spanish - in state schools. This will change in the new school year, however, when we will have working across five local authority schools.
While 67 per cent of secondary schools that responded to this year’s Language Trends Scotland survey plan international trips, young people who cannot afford such excursions would greatly benefit from the addition of a near-peer native speaker in the languages classroom.
Language learning is not just about qualifications; it is about the journey, the friendships and the soft power that such endeavours can generate. The opportunities are manifold - but we need to ensure that we retain a multilingual mindset for the Scotland of the future.
Harish Lokhun is head of education at the British Council Scotland
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