MULTICULTURAL Manchester is lagging behind in teaching languages at school.
Government figures show fewer than three-quarters of seven to 11-year-olds have an opportunity to learn a foreign language.
That compares to a national average of 81 per cent - and a figure of 100 per cent in neighbouring areas like Salford and Trafford.
Council chiefs said they would be stepping up their efforts in line with new rules saying all seven-year-olds should be learning a second language by 2010.
The new figures, announced by schools minister Jim Knight, show the percentages of primary schoolchildren given the chance to learn a second language in other areas of Greater Manchester were: Wigan, 96.15; Bolton 96; Bury 94.44; Tameside 90.48; Stockport 87.50; Oldham 81.25.
Below average
Manchester, on 74.29 per cent, was well below the national average of 81.38 per cent despite being one of the most ethnically diverse cities in Britain.
One in five residents comes from an ethnic minority, and a recent audit of city schools showed pupils spoke a total of 129 languages. Some 22.9 per cent of children did not have English as their mother tongue.
The most common non-English first languages were Urdu and Punjabi. Also on the list were Spanish, Polish, Tagalog - which originates in the Philippines - and Hakka, from China.
Coun Sheila Newman said: "There are some excellent examples in Manchester of primary schools where teaching of languages is of a very high quality.
"We are working closely with all primary schools in the city to build on this and to ensure that by 2010 every child will begin learning a new language from age seven, in line with national requirements."
Peter McNamara, Salford council's school improvement officer, said: "We are committed to supporting our primary schools in teaching modern foreign languages during school time.
"In a scheme run by the British Council, over 20 foreign language assistants from France, Spain, Mexico, Paraguay and Italy work across our primary schools to provide the expertise that is needed."
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Kids failing at languages
August 07, 2007
Showing comments 1 to 4 and replies | View All
mauger, Germany (07/08/2007 at 10:06)
Iftikhar Ahmad, Forest gate London (07/08/2007 at 19:46)
State schools with monolingual teachers are not suitable to teach English, Arabic, Urdu and other community languages to bilingual Muslim children. Majority of Muslim children have left schools with low grades because the schools are unable to teach Standard English. Bilingual Muslim children need state funded Muslim schools with bilingual Muslim teachers as role models for the teaching and learning of Standard English, Arabic, Urdu and other community languages.
Muslim chkdren need to learn English and other community languages right from Nursery level at the same time. Muslim community has already lost three generations and fourth one is in the process of losing its cultural, linguistic and spiritual Identies because they have been mis-educated and de-educated by state schools with non-Muslim monolingual teachers.
EricH, Horwich (08/08/2007 at 09:17)
PW, Manchester (08/08/2007 at 10:04)