Italian is language of choice among secondary school students

Italian was the most popular foreign language of choice for secondary school students during the scholastic year 2004/2005 with more than 14,000 students choosing it as their first foreign language, confirming the affinity of the country to the mainland neighbour.
Statistics released yesterday by the National Statistics Office show that 51 per cent of secondary school students chose Italian as their first foreign language of choice. But Italian was more popular among boys, with 61.8 per cent of male students opting to study the language as opposed to 40.3 per cent of girls. In total, 14,645 students studied Italian as a first choice.
French was the second most-studied language of choice with 36.8 per cent of all secondary school students studying the language. As in previous years, French was more popular among girls than boys.
German was studied by 1,905 students or 6.6 per cent while 421 students opted for Spanish as their first choice foreign language. Only 12 students took Arabic and another 3 took Russian, as their first choice.
English is not considered to be a foreign language because it is part of the compulsory syllabus since primary school.