As Director General at the Ministry of Education, I introduced a bill in 2008, during Slovenia's first EU Council Presidency, to require a second foreign language in Slovenian primary schools. The idea was to include all the languages of our neighbouring countries – Italian, German, Hungarian and Croatian – as well as French. Unfortunately, however, we still don’t have a compulsory second foreign language in primary school education. A second foreign language in Slovene schools is a must, but it’s hard to say whether that will be possible anytime in the near future.

Mojca Škrinjar