English-Only Exams No Good in EU

Interesting read about weak foreign language skills in England. http://euobserver.com/9/31844/?rk=1

WHOLE ARTICLE

The low success rate of British citizens taking the European so-called 'concours' is also compounding the problems, said officials.

"The situation has been exacerbated by the previous Labour government's decision to abandon obligatory second language teaching at the age of 14," an EU source told this website.

Here is the beginning of the article, full article see link above.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The European Commission has rejected the idea of an 'English-only' exam to help increase

the number of British citizens working in the EU institution, despite calls from London to allow a one-off monolingual EU exam to boost flagging numbers.

British citizens make up 12 percent of the EU's total population but only five percent of the commission's roughly 26,000-person workforce, making it one of the least-represented EU member states relative to its size.

Weak foreign language skills are thought to be a key deterrent for British citizens hoping to join the EU's institutional machinery, with applicants required to sit entry exams in a second language in order to promote a more polyglot workforce.

A British foreign office proposal for a one-off English-only exam is unacceptable however, an official for the European Commission said on Monday (21 February), despite media suggestions that Brussels had been considering the idea.