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Nearly 60 pct of EU lower secondary level pupils study more than 1 foreign languages

Xinhua, February 24, 2017 Adjust font size:

Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union (EU), released data on Thursday which showed that more than 10 million lower secondary school pupils in the bloc studied two or more foreign languages in 2015.

This means that more than 58.8 percent of lower secondary school pupils studied two or more foreign languages that year. Pupils often enter lower secondary education at the age of 11 or 12, according to Eurotat.

English was by far the most popular language at the lower secondary level in a vast majority of EU member states, studied by nearly 17 million pupils, or 97.3 percent. For example, all pupils attend English classes in Denmark, Malta and Sweden, said Eurostat.

This was followed by French, which was studied by five million pupils. German and Spanish ranked third and the fourth by three million and two million respectively.

In 2015, the most recent year for which there are records, all or nearly all lower secondary school pupils learnt at least two foreign languages in Luxembourg, Finland, Italy, Estonia, and Romania, while fewer than 10 percent of pupils studied two or more languages in Hungary and Austria, data showed. Endit