In the school year 2015–2016 the proportion of students at the upper secondary level learning at least one foreign language was 70.8%, a decrease by 1.4 percentage points from the previous year. The proportion increased slightly in 2016–2017, and was 71.6%. The proportion of students learning foreign languages was 72–74% during the school years 2003–2015. Results from Statistics Iceland’s data collection for school years 2015–2016 and 2016–2017 indicate that fewer students are learning foreign languages.
The number of students learning foreign languages has decreased from 17,400 in the school year 2014–2015 to a little less than 16,200 in 2016–2017. Similarly, the total number of students at the upper secondary level has decreased by about 1,500 during the same period. In many schools at the upper secondary level, a new curriculum was implemented in the autumn of 2015, where the duration of studies for the matriculation examination was shortened. Due to this change, the number of foreign language courses required to complete the examination decreased. This might explain a part of the decrease in the number of students learning foreign languages.
More females choose to learn Spanish while males choose German
Spanish and German were the most common third languages to be studied in 2015–2017, as was the case in previous years. In 2012–2013, more students learned Spanish than German for the first time and that trend has continued in more recent years. A total of 4,200 students learned Spanish in 2016–2017, while 3,837 students learned German. Females are more likely to study Spanish, as approximately 2,500 females were enrolled in a Spanish class each school year in 2015–2017, but approximately 1,900 females were enrolled in a German class. Among males, German was more popular than Spanish, as approximately 1,900 males learned German in 2015–2017 while over 1,600 chose Spanish.
In the school year 2014–2015, there were for the first time more males than females who learned foreign languages, although the difference was only slight. In 2015–2016 there was a decrease in the number of males who learned foreign languages, by roughly three percentage points. At the same time, the proportion of females learning foreign languages stayed the same, and once again more females than males learned foreign languages.
Fewer students learn Danish
The most common foreign language studied at the upper secondary level was English, with 13,683 students in the school year 2015–2016 and 13,405 the year after. The second most common language was Danish, with 6,509 students in the school year 2015–2016 and 5,964 students in 2016–2017. The proportion of students learning Danish decreased considerably, by approximately 17 percentage points, from the school year 2014–2015.
Chinese language courses have become more popular among students at the upper secondary level. In 2015–2016, 24 students learned Chinese, 14 males and 10 females, and in 2016–2017 there were 18 students learning Chinese. Previously, there had been at most 18 students enrolled in a Chinese course, in the school year 2010–2011.
Most students learn two languages
On average, students at the upper secondary level learned 1.31 languages per year in 2015–2017, which is comparable to previous school years. Most students learn two languages in the same school year, about 45% of all those who study foreign languages, and that proportion has stayed roughly the same since the school year 2013–2014.
About the data
Data on students learning foreign languages are collected twice a year from upper secondary schools. However, the data only include students studying foreign languages in the spring semester who were registered students in the autumn semester of the same school year. The data refer to students who learn foreign languages during the respective school year. Information is only collected on living foreign languages. Students in Latin, classical Greek and Esperanto are therefore not included.