No one should be surprised at the appalling consequence of the Government’s short-sighted and ill-considered decision to drop languages as a compulsory subject at GSCE.

In the past year, three quarters of comprehensives have scrapped languages as an exam requirement, with a 72 per cent drop in the number studying French and a 70 per cent fall for German. In the poorest areas, the fall has been even more precipitous: 82 per cent of comprehensives in working-class areas reported that languages have been made optional after the age of 14. And the farther north the school, the less likely it is to insist on serious language study.

This is unwelcome news, and comes at the very time when Britain’s economy, politics, culture and way of life are more closely linked to mainland Europe — and the global economy — than at any other period in history. Insularity is not simply a question of geography. Britain is joined to its neighbours by a tunnel and a sheaf of treaties, as well as a web of family, tourist and sporting links. Yet the inability of monoglot Britons to enter into the worlds of those who do not speak English has rarely been so pronounced. The Government has ensured that only pupils from private schools and the few remaining grammar schools, which still insist on languages, will have any future base on which to build an understanding of other nations and cultures.

This retreat is all the more shameful for being so predictable. Attempting to calm the uproar from modern language teachers at his proposed changes, Charles Clarke, the Education Secretary, argued that he was actually encouraging languages by giving all children an entitlement to learn at least one European language from the age of 7 by the end of the decade. His claim is risible. No more than 3 per cent of primary schools are giving pupils at least one 20-minute lesson a week. As the National Association of Head Teachers pointed out on Monday, primary schools are “light years” away from the target. And without any requirement for language at secondary level, there is no incentive whatsoever to take primary French, German or Spanish seriously.

Despairing of any change on cultural or political grounds, teachers have turned to the utilitarian argument for languages. Yes, they say, English may indeed now be a global medium. That does not ensure that everyone in China, Japan, the Middle East or Latin America can conduct business, write letters or negotiate treaties in English. Learning a language — European, Asian or otherwise — makes children skilled in their own language; it offers social and employment opportunities, broadens a mindset, teaches flexibility and bolsters self-confidence. These are obviously not deemed high priorities for our education system.

Making languages optional in a competitive and crowded timetable guarantees their marginalisation. It also further disadvantages the boys, who are more likely to drop them than girls. And, as research suggests, it is hardly likely to help to erode the class and geographical divide within Britain.

It is particularly odd that a Prime Minister with a personal aptitude for foreign languages should be content to hear the sound of silence. There should be direct intervention by Downing Street to look again at this policy. For in whatever language you might speak, this is a bad decision.