What’s going on with language learning in Aotearoa?  

A new study has found fewer students are learning languages now than at any time in the past 80 years

Among the report’s key findings is that “fewer students are learning languages now than at any time in the past 80 years”. According to the report, language learning peaked in New Zealand in the 1960s, when almost 40 percent of students learnt a second language. By 2014, the report states, the number was one in five.  

The report calls for compulsory second language learning, with all year seven to year 10 students receiving three to four hours of language teaching each week.

The absence of compulsory language training makes New Zealand an outlier among the rest of the OECD, observes the report.

Even other “English-dominant” countries, such as the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Singapore and South Africa all require students to be proficient in – or at least study – a second language. Similarly, Australia’s 1987 National Policy of Languages is considered the world’s first “comprehensive multilingual policy”. 

We take a closer look at what’s going on with language learning in Aotearoa. 

What do the numbers say?  

The number of people studying Japanese at tertiary level in New Zealand dropped 44 percent between 2015 and 2024

According to Ministry of Education data, there were 94,554 high school students learning a language other than English or English as a second language in 2024. While this is down from the 102,172 in 2008, it is a significant increase from the 78,617 students learning an additional language in 2015 and means almost a third of all high school students are studying a second or third language.  

At the high school level, the bigger shift is the languages students are opting to study. Te reo Māori is officially the most popular choice, with almost 40,000 high school learners, followed by Spanish (nearly 13,000), French and Japanese (both with over 12,000).  Chinese (not further specified) is in fifth place with almost 5,500 learners, followed by Samoan and German.  

This is a marked change from 2008, when French was the most popular language choice (with over 28,000 learners), followed by te reo Māori (with around 26,300 learners), Japanese (around 18,000 learners) and Spanish (with 10,900). Less than 2,000 students were enrolled in Chinese.  

The tertiary numbers, however, paint a far grimmer picture.  

All “international” languages have experienced significant drops at the tertiary level over the past decade, with the exceptions of Samoan, Tongan, and Niuean which have seen notable increases although overall numbers remain small (less than 270 students combined in 2024), as well as Hebrew, which has consistently retained between five and 10 students each year. 

Japanese, the most popular international language among tertiary students, had just 430 enrolments in 2024, down from 765 in 2015 (-44%).

Similarly, Spanish, the next most popular choice, dropped from 655 in 2015 to less than 400 enrolments in 2024 (-39%).

Those studying French dropped from 585 to 230 (-61%) in the same period.

While there were 445 students studying Chinese at the tertiary level in 2015, there were just 175 by 2024 (-61%).

Last year saw 110 students studying Korean, compared to 120 in 2015, suggesting that the global allure of Korea’s popular culture has helped it to somewhat withstand the rapid declines seen across other Asian and European languages. 

The other exception is New Zealand’s own te reo Māori which had close to 38,000 learners in 2024, up from 21,635 in 2015 (+76%). 

*Data for primary school language learners is not available beyond 2017. 

What is to be done? 

It should go without saying that being able to communicate in more than one language confers a multitude of benefits, both to the individual and society. 

As a small island country, being connected to the rest of the world is of vital importance. For countries like China, which is New Zealand’s largest trading partner by a significant margin and a major player in the Indo-Pacific, being able to produce “sovereign knowledge” as a recent report from the New Zealand Contemporary China Research Centre puts it – something which requires language skills – is critical.  

The reasons why fewer New Zealanders are opting to learn languages are not well understood, particularly at the tertiary level. The phenomenon is also by no means unique to New Zealand – Australia and the United States have both seen noticeable drop offs in those learning second languages – undermining arguments that the uptick in te reo Māori is to blame for declining enrolments in other languages.

As has been pointed out, it likely has more to do with greater emphasis on STEM subjects and the misconception that AI will supplant the need to learn languages. The recent cuts to university arts and humanities faculties have further narrowed the opportunities for tertiary-level language study. 

Gisborne primary students in a te reo Māori immersion programme studying Mandarin

Further complicating the drop is that New Zealanders still recognise, at least in the abstract, the importance of Asian language capability. Three quarters of New Zealanders recognise the importance of Asian language skills to New Zealand’s future workforce according to the most recent Perceptions of Asia survey. What's more, a third of New Zealanders under 30 are interested in Asian languages in their daily lives, compared to just 17 percent of those over 30, according to the same survey.  

More work needs to be done to understand why this reported interest is not converting to the uptake of formal study, and for languages like Spanish and Chinese, why increased learners at the high school level are not translating to higher numbers at the tertiary level, but are instead coinciding with major drops. 

So what about the call for compulsory language teaching across years seven to 10? 

While New Zealand has never had a national languages policy in the same way as Australia, New Zealand universities do have a history of compulsory language study. Until the 1970s, those enrolled in an arts degree at New Zealand universities were required to study a modern language, while Latin was mandatory for first year law students until 1952. 

But perhaps the closest New Zealand has come to adopting a nation-wide policy is the languages bill introduced by former National MP Nikki Kaye. The bill would have seen the Ministry of Education identifying a minimum of 10 “national priority languages”.  Primary and secondary schools would then have been required to deliver at least one of these languages to their students.

While the bill passed its first reading with the support of National, Labour, the Greens and Act, it has never been taken further, with successive governments pointing to concerns about workforce shortages (something the report challenges while noting that the shortage of te reo teachers means those wanting to study the language often cannot) or that emphasis should be on other areas, such as reading, writing and maths.  

A key part of the appeal of making language learning compulsory is that a sizable portion of those exposed to learning a second or third language will discover a love for it and opt to continue studying it until they obtain a high degree of proficiency and knowledge of that society and culture.

A generation of New Zealanders being able rattle off the infamous textbook phrase, “La plume de ma tante est sur la table” or “my aunt’s pen is on the table”, has not after all, fostered a boon of New Zealanders with deep knowledge of North Africa, let alone the French speaking Pacific Island countries closer to home.  

Compulsory language education at high school has the potential to be a game changer in ushering in a genuinely bilingual or multilingual Aotearoa, but it also needs to be combined with understanding and addressing the barriers and disincentives that prevent even those interested in learning a second or third language from currently doing so.  

The Foundation's Asia in Focus initiative publishes expert insights and analysis on issues across Asia, as well as New Zealand’s evolving relationship with the region.