If we are going to be serious about compulsory foreign languages, we need to start teaching them in the primary school".
Many dinner-party intellectuals are comfortable decrying the "easy" subjects on offer in schools today as they long for a return to compulsory foreign languages and the classics.
Nigel de Gruchy, general secretary of the National Association of School Masters/ Union of Women Teachers said: "We suffer from a 'yob' culture among certain youngsters, which makes a mockery of compulsory foreign languages.
It wasn't supposed to happen like this, says Estelle Morris, the former Education Secretary who in February 2002 announced the decision to remove a compulsory modern foreign language from KS4 - the stage of the curriculum for 14 to 16-year-olds.
Some schools delivered programs that ran for only one semester (approximately 20 weeks) or one term (approximately 10 weeks) of the academic year, even in the compulsory years of foreign language education.
The proposals published this week include making a foreign language compulsory from the age of seven, as well as introducing more demanding programmes in maths and English.
Being a compromise between traditional A-levels and the baccalaureate programmes of five or six subjects (usually including compulsory maths and a foreign language) followed by most continental pupils, it wasn't a complete success.
Chris Hamnet is professor of geography at King's College London In 2006 the Observer published a letter signed by 50 directors of university language centres asking the government to consider making a foreign language compulsory again for 14 to 16 year-olds.
Their policies focus on reducing early school leaving to 10% and making the study of at least one foreign language compulsory.
The guide reminds students that abroad, for example in Asian countries, subjects such as maths, the native language, a science and a foreign language are compulsory up to 17.
Gove said the government may make it compulsory to study foreign languages up to GCSE.
