16. How many foreign languages are IVET students learning?

Knowledge of foreign languages enables individuals to participate in education programmes abroad or to seek employment in other Member States. Foreign language skills can also improve the competitiveness of the EU economy. The indicator below considers the extent to which foreign languages are taught in IVET programmes in Europe.  

The indicator is defined as the average number of foreign languages learned in upper secondary vocational education. EU averages are estimated from available country data. The same indicator is calculated for upper secondary general education for comparative purposes. 

Average number of foreign languages learned in initial VET

Source: Eurostat, UOE data collection on formal education systems.

Key points

In the EU, the average number of foreign languages learned in upper secondary IVET was 1.2 in 2020. This was lower than in upper secondary general education where the EU average was 1.6 languages. A gap between IVET and general education was observable in most EU Member States. This gap particularly large in Germany, Denmark and Estonia, where unfavourable differences for VET exceeds one unit, but also in Czechia, France, Spain, Croatia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Hungary, Malta, Netherlands, Slovenia, Slovakia and Sweden (between 0.7 and 0.9). In Romania values were on par, while only in and Italy and Portugal, the number of foreign languages higher in IVET than in general education. In 2020, the average number of foreign languages learned in upper secondary IVET was highest in Luxembourg (2.4) followed by Romania (2.0), Finland (1.9) and Poland (1.8). In contrast, six Member States had an average number of foreign languages learned in upper secondary IVET programmes of less than one: Spain, Germany, Lithuania and the Netherlands, Denmark, and Estonia. On average, the number of foreign languages learned in upper secondary IVET did not change substantially in the EU between 2015 and 2020. Over the same period, most Member States were stable. There was progress in Belgium, Greece and Luxemburg (all by 0.3 percentage points). The largest drop in the average number of foreign languages was in Slovakia and Lithuania (down 0.2). The only non-EU countries with updated and reliable information is Norway where the average number of foreign languages in IVET remained stable at 0.5 in 2020. 

Table 16. Average number of foreign languages learned in initial VET 

Source: Eurostat, UOE data collection on formal education systems. Notes: EU values are weighted averages based on available country data calculated by Cedefop; d) ‘definition differs’; V) Cedefop estimated weighted average based on available country data; data are not presented when they are not available and/or do not support sufficiently reliable comparisons across countries or over time.