26 foreign languages for primary children

Children as young as seven are to be offered tests in more than 25 foreign languages in a drive to boost the subject in primary schools.

Ministers came under fire when they decided to scrap compulsory language lessons from age 14, with effect from September this year, in a move to free up the secondary school curriculum.

They promised instead that by the end of the decade all primary children would have an "entitlement" to learn a foreign language.

Now they hope the new tests - developed in a £7million contract by the University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate - will stimulate interest in languages in the one in four primaries where teaching is already available.

Tests in French, German and Spanish will be on offer from September, with Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Punjabi and Urdu a year later and tests in 26 languages in all in five years.

Children will be graded as they would while learning to play an instrument, and will be assessed in speaking, listening, reading and writing.

Assessment will cost a "modest fee", which ministers envisage would be borne by schools.

The Government still faces a problem recruiting enough language teachers, with fewer teenagers taking languages at A-level, leading to a fall in the number of qualified graduates.