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The U.K. education secretary Gavin Williamson has a new $5.5 million programme to Latin at 40 schools across the country. Mr Williamson said the Latin Excellence Programme to "level up" opportunities for students in some government-run schools. Latin is a language that was in the area around Rome over 2,000 years ago. It is in 49% of the UK's "elite" private schools but only 2.7% of state schools. Williamson said: "Latin a reputation as an elitist subject, which reserved for the privileged few, but the subject can so many benefits to young people, so I want to an end to that divide." He added: "Latin can pupils with learning modern foreign languages."

The initiative has a heated debate about the benefits of Latin. Many people have the programme as nothing but a "poorly-funded gimmick". Politician Tim Farron wrote: "Latin is elite because only people who are guaranteed successful careers, to family connections, can to waste time on a subject whose only practical application is in understanding...the dialogue in [ancient] books." Author Emma Kennedy the use of a "dead" language. She uses Latin to "occasionally things on tombs". A teacher said money would be better on living languages like Chinese or Arabic that would children "to get ahead in and with the world," or on computer coding.