PARENTS should consider sending their child on a school foreign exchange rather than spending money on a week in Majorca, a headteacher has suggested.

Youngsters are likely to learn more on a cultural break in a city such as Madrid or Barcelona than they are sitting on a beach, according to Caroline Jordan, the new president of the Girls' School Association.

Mrs Jordan, headmistress of Headington School, Oxford, said more needs to be done to ensure that children learn a foreign language. And she stressed that teenagers should be given the opportunity to consider studying at a university overseas, arguing that it can be beneficial to them later on.

Setting up a foreign exchange for students does not have to be expensive, Mrs Jordan said.

"There's no real way of learning a language quite so effectively as being in that country, being absorbed in it. But actually there are cheaper ways of doing it, through links directly with a school. You can get a cheap airfare out to Spain," she said.

"It's trying to convince the parents that that's good use of their finances as opposed to a foreign holiday to Majorca, where they may well be in a Spanish environment but they're less likely to be experiencing Spanish as they would be if they were in somewhere like Madrid or Barcelona on exchange.

"Exchange is very important and we know that languages is a real area of concern in this country. The government is doing quite a lot about this by trying to encourage all children to take a language through the English Baccalaureate."

Figures show that last year, there was a drop in language GCSE entries, with French down 6.2per cent on 2014, German down 9.8per cent and Spanish down 2.4per cent.

Mrs Jordan said the UK needs more language teachers, adding: "We need to make sure we're not isolationist in the UK. We need to be encouraging our young people to learn a different language to be able to converse with each other.

"These days we're living very much in a global village. Whereas when we were at school people would emigrate - emigrate is a word you don't hear very often any more.

"Our youngsters will think nothing about going to work for two years in Vancouver or a year in Singapore. So how do we give them those skills when they're at school?"

At Headington, a private girls' school, pupils have chance to study for the International Baccalaureate in the sixth-form and there are exchanges and partnerships with schools in places like Australia and China. The school also puts on an overseas university fair, also open to state schools, allowing teenagers to find out more about studying abroad.

Mrs Jordan said parents and children are "thinking more selectively" about university choices. "And of course, if you come back to this country and you have been educated at a university abroad, that gives you an extra thing to put on your CV."

She added: "You have to continue to show that you are worthy of the place and keep working. I think employers are waking up to that fact and realising that it's a good degree for that reason."

Emily Weaver, 23, of Gomersal, spent a year studying in California as part of her PE degree. "I deliberately chose a course which would involve a year overseas because I wanted to broaden my experiences, and I thought it would look good on my CV. As well as studying at university I helped out at children's sports clubs in my spare time, which was great experience," she said. "I've got friends who took a gap year before university but most of them didn't really do much, other than travel a bit, so it was more like an extended holiday. I think if you show that you've been committed to working or studying in another country it looks more impressive than just casually travelling round at your parents' expense!

"We do live in a global village, and many employers recognise that. Going to live in another country, at quite a young age, shows initiative, independence and confidence, which are all attractive qualities to potential employers.

"I think children should be encouraged at school to think about studying or working abroad. My sister spent a year in Germany and quickly learned to speak it fluently. It helped her get a job in international commerce when she came back."