COUNTY students are among the most multi-lingual in the country, with four in five sitting at least one foreign language at GCSE level.

Schools Minister Stephen Twigg has studied the number of 15-year-olds sitting French, German or Spanish across the UK, in a bid to promote foreign languages at an earlier age.

The figures revealed 59 per cent of Worcestershire pupils sit French, and 79 per cent sit one of the three foreign language exams.

The statistics put Worcestershire in the top fifth of local education authorities in the country - 30th out of 150.

"We have been and always will be very supportive of our middle and high schools pursuing languages," said Stephen Jones, Worcestershire County Council's senior inspector of modern languages.

"The majority of Ofsted reports we've seen recently say that our schools are either good or very good when it came to languages."

However, Mr Twigg said even top-performing LEAs could not rest on their laurels, and more needed to be done to encourage students on to courses.

"We want to work with LEAs throughout the country to encourage more pupils than ever before to take up a foreign language and develop an interest in other nations' cultures," he said.

"This is important for the pupils' development, and the country as a whole, with more than half of UK worldwide trade being with Europe."

Mr Twigg added that the only way to strengthen and protect these links was to create a "thirst for language" learning at an earlier age, especially in primary schools.

"Our National Languages Strategy aims to give every primary pupil aged seven to 11 the chance to learn at least one foreign language by the end of the decade," he said.

"I'm particularly keen that we do more to increase the teaching of Spanish. Last year, people living in the UK made 12.6 million visits to Spain.

"Spanish is the second most spoken European international business language behind English, and yet, only eight per cent of pupils doing GCSEs in England's maintained schools took Spanish as one of their subjects in 2002."