The most popular first foreign language in both public, church and private secondary schools was Italian with 56.3 per cent, 40.8 per cent and 45.8 per cent popularity among all students in the respective schools, the National Statistics Office said yesterday. French ranked second and German retained its third position.

A closer look at the distribution of languages studied during 2004/2005, showed that at the lower secondary level (forms I to V), Italian maintained its popularity among students’ first choice for the studying of a foreign language. In fact, those who took Italian as a first foreign language accounted for 14,645 or 51 per cent of the total number of students at secondary level – the same as in 2003/04.

Italian as a first foreign language, however, seemed to be much popular among boys.

The percentage of boys studying Italian as their first foreign language stood at 61.8 per cent – against the 40.3 per cent for girls. The highest first preference among girls during the year under review was again French. In fact, 6,807 or 47.4 per cent of girls as opposed to 3,735 or 26.1 per cent of boys chose French as their first foreign language. French ranked as the second most studied first foreign language among the 11-16 year old group with 36.8 per cent of all the students at lower secondary.

Apart from Italian and French, there were 1,905 students or 6.6 per cent of the total number of students, who opted to take German, while another small number of students, 421 or 1.5 per cent took Spanish. Only 12 students took Arabic and another three took Russian, as their first choice.

A similar pattern followed in the choice of a second foreign language; Italian proved once again to be the most favourite as 3,634 students or 53 per cent of the number of students who studied a second foreign language, opted for Italian.

On the other hand, 30.2 per cent of the students took French. However, the number of female students who took Italian as a second foreign language accounted for 68.6 per cent of the total female students taking a second foreign language. This showed an opposite trend to that evidenced in the choice of a first foreign language among the two sexes. While female students gave preference to French as their first choice for a foreign language, the majority of them preferred Italian as their second choice.

On the other hand, 51.7 per cent of the male students taking a second foreign language opted for French, 33.9 per cent chose Italian, 12.7 per cent chose German and 1.6 per cent chose Spanish as their second choice. Only 15 students opted for Arabic, six for Russian and another five students chose Latin as their second foreign language.

Overall, the most popular first foreign language in both public, church and private secondary schools remained Italian with 56.3 per cent, 40.8 per cent and 45.8 per cent popularity among all students in the respective schools. French ranked second and German retained its third position. The same ranking was evident with the choice of the second foreign language among all the three sectors.

1,158 students or four per cent of secondary students did not study any foreign language.

62.8 per cent of these students were males. 834 or 72 per cent of these students attended government secondary schools. Another 754 or 13.3 per cent attended secondary church schools while the remaining 14.7 attended private independent secondary schools.

Apart from English being taught from the early stages of compulsory education, only 306 students at church and independent private schools studied Italian, Spanish, French and Arabic towards the end of their primary education.