In 2022, 60.8% of students in upper secondary general education across the EU studied 2 or more foreign languages as compulsory subjects or as compulsory curriculum options, a 0.2 percentage point decrease compared with 2021 (61.0%). In upper secondary vocational education, this share was 33.8%, marking a 1.1 percentage point decrease compared with 2021 (34.9%).
Latvia beats both those figures with 87.5% of students in upper secondary general education studying 2 or more foreign languages and 51.2% in upper secondary vocational education.
In 9 EU countries, more than 90% of upper secondary general education students studied 2 or more foreign languages. This is the case for nearly all students in upper secondary general education in France (99.7%), Romania and Slovakia (both 98.9%), and Czechia (98.8%).
In contrast, Portugal (7.5%), Ireland (9.4%) and Italy (24%) recorded the lowest shares of students studying 2 or more foreign languages.
When it comes to upper secondary vocational education, Romania was the only EU country where almost all students (97.1%) studied 2 or more foreign languages in 2022, followed by Finland (86.1%), Poland (75.9%) and Luxembourg (75.5%).
The lowest shares of students studying 2 or more foreign languages were observed among vocational education students in Malta (0.0%), Spain (0.2%) and Germany and Greece (0.8% each).
In 2022, English was the most studied foreign language in general and vocational education at the upper secondary level in the EU, with 96.3% and 76.3% of students learning it, respectively.
In terms of general education, Spanish ranked second (27.1%), followed by French (21.9%), German (21.4%) and Italian (3.2%). In addition, Russian was the non-EU language most commonly studied in the EU (2.7%). The figure for Russian is likely to nosedive in the future with many countries, including Latvia, now switching their emphasis to other languages following Russia's invasoin of Ukraine.
In vocational education, the German language came in second (17.2%), followed by French (15.2%), Spanish (6.8%) and Russian (2.2%).
