Priorities

From The National Literary Trust website comes this litle gem -


"In 2003, the Central Office of Information (COI) Strategic Consultancy Inclusivity team was commissioned by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to undertake a review of the ethnic minority languages used by the department. The aim was to understand the communication needs of each community and recommend languages into which DWP information should be translated. The key written languages (in alphabetical order) were:

1. Arabic
2. Bengali
3. Classical Chinese
4. French
5. Gujerati
6. Polish
7. Punjabi
8. Somali
9. Tamil
10. Urdu

Some local authorities can provide information on the communities in the area, and which languages are spoken, from their local knowledge. Otherwise, it is worth contacting CILT, the national centre for languages, for more information. Visit www.cilt.org.uk/research/statistics/index.htm"



You may also see an interesting table showing "Percentage of pupils in the UK gaining five or more grade A*- C at GCSE:" here. This table shows unsurprisingly that the best performing pupils are from the Chinese community, then the Indian, then a long way behind the White, then the Bangladeshi and even further behind Arican, Pakistani and Caribbean. To put some figures to that, 81% of Chinese ancestry pupils get five or more A*-C results at GCSE compared to 41.7% of Caribbean ancestry pupils. The relative rate of improvement since 1998 is also interesting. Do bear in mind that the exams have got progressively easier since this Labour government came to power, as has the marking.


Another interesting table was this one:
"20 most common languages in London schools, 2006
Research has revealed that more than 300 languages are spoken by children in London's schools, making the capital the most linguistically diverse city in the world. Although English remains overwhelmingly the most common first language, for more than a third of children it is not the language they will speak or hear spoken at home.
Language Approx. total
English 608,500
Bengali and Sylheti 40,400
Punjabi 29,800
Gujarati 28,600
Hindu/Urdu 26,000
Turkish 15,600
Arabic 11,000
English - based Creoles 10,700
Yoruba (Nigeria) 10,400
Somali 8,300
Cantonese 6,900
Greek 6,300
Akan (Ashanti) 6,000
Portuguese 6,000
French 5,600
Spanish 5,500
Tamil (Sri Lanka, Tamil Nadu- India) 3,700
Farsi (Persian) 3,300
Italian 2,500
Vietnamese 2,400


(thelondonpaper, 18 September 2006)"