In 2022, 60.8% of students in general upper secondary education across the EU studied two or more foreign languages as compulsory subjects or as compulsory curricular options, a decrease of only 0.2 percentage points compared to 2021 (61.0%). In upper secondary vocational education, this percentage was 33.8 %, a decrease of 1.1 percentage points compared to 2021 (34.9 %).
In nine EU countries, more than 90 % of pupils in general upper secondary education studied two or more foreign languages. This is the case for almost all general upper secondary students in France (99.7 %), Romania and Slovakia (both 98.9 %) and the Czech Republic (98.8 %).
In contrast, Portugal (7.5 %), Ireland (9.4 %) and Italy (24 %) have the lowest percentages of pupils studying 2 or more foreign languages.
Foreign language learning increases among EU students |
In terms of upper secondary vocational education, Romania was the only EU country where almost all students (97.1 %) studied two or more foreign languages in 2022, followed by Finland (86.1 %), Poland (75.9 %) and Luxembourg (75.5 %).
The lowest percentages of students studying two or more foreign languages were observed among vocational students in Malta (0.0%), Spain (0.2%) and Germany and Greece (0.8% each).
English: most studied foreign language in upper secondary education
In 2022, English was the most studied foreign language in general and vocational upper secondary education in the EU, with 96.3% and 76.3% of pupils learning it respectively.
In general education, Spanish came second (27.1%), followed by French (21.9%), German (21.4%) and Italian (3.2%). In addition, Russian was the most studied non-EU language in the EU (2.7%).
In vocational education, German came second (17.2%), followed by French (15.2%), Spanish (6.8%) and Russian (2.2%).
More information: Eurostat
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