Despite lauded language skills in the tourists areas of the Algarve, the Portuguese in fact have the lowest EC score for learning a foreign language in school.
The recently announced 2013 figures from Eurostat show that just 35% of ‘first cycle’ pupils learned a foreign language, the lowest percentage in the Community, but from this academic year it is mandatory for third year pupils to learn English.
Also starting this year, schools heads have been given an optional opportunity to teach English on entry. With the publication of a new law last year, English language teaching was made compulsory from the 3rd grade onwards with a minimum of two hours a week.
The Eurostat data show that Portugal has 35% of her ‘first cycle’ students, (defined as starting between five and seven years old and covering six years of education,) learning a foreign language against a European average of 81.7%.
Top linguists can be found in Cyprus, Luxembourg and Austria, where all students have learned at least one foreign language. In Italy, Croatia, Spain and France the percentage is 99% with English and German the most widely taught languages.
English was the language most studied by primary school students in the vast majority of European countries, except in Belgium where Dutch took precedence taught and in Luxembourg where German is taken.
Whatever the relative teaching programmes, the Portuguese are streets ahead of the British whose legendary lack of language skills are recognised world-wide.
