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

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