Business leaders have warned that a decline in the number of students studying languages and science could harm Britain's long term prosperity.
CBI chief Sir Digby Jones said that employees skilled in science and fluent in languages are crucial for businesses to remain competitive.
A new analysis of government figures found that the number of 16 to 18-year-olds taking A Level physics fell by 55 per cent between 1984 and 2004 while chemistry declined by a third.
And just one in 25 students study a modern language at A Level, with even less interest in the key skills required by business such as Mandarin, Russian or Spanish.
"The strength and future success of the UK economy relies on the education system producing students of a high calibre in disciplines like science and languages," said Sir Digby.
"Britain is the country of Stephenson and Brunel, Watson and Crick, Sir Frank Whittle and Stephen Hawking - but while its heritage is rich with scientific achievement and engineering endeavour, the future is less certain.
"Youngsters need to be equipped with the skills to make their way in the competitive globalised economy of the 21st century and business must have them if it is to meet the onslaught from countries like China and India.
"China alone produces almost 300,000 high quality science and engineering graduates each year.
"Science, engineering and technology skills are the essential building blocks of research and development.
"Without innovation and the ability to secure advantage the UK cannot hope to challenge these emerging markets as they invest huge resources into producing top quality graduates."
A separate CBI survey to be published later this year is also set to highlight employer dissatisfaction with the language capability of school-leavers.
Sir Digby added: "Anyone who can clinch a deal in Argentina because of a grasp of Spanish, give directions to an Italian family visiting a tourist information office in the Lake District or work with a Chinese sporting delegation in London for the Olympics, will be of immense value to business and Britain.
"The decline of French and German would be of limited consequence if young people were instead learning Spanish or Mandarin, equipping them to do business across the world in the 21st century's global economy.
"We must change our cultural attitude: we are an island race but must embrace the world and speak its languages if we want to be in the pole position for business.
"These issues must be tackled by government, teachers, careers advisors and companies - we cannot allow it to blight the UK's future economic success."
However the Department for Education and Skills sought to play down the fears.
A spokesman said that "sciences continue to be amongst the more popular courses at A Level and the most recent set of UCAS figures show applications for science subjects up by over 10 per cent compared with last year".
"We want this to continue. We are introducing a new science programme of study at GCSE that will maintain a clear focus on academic rigour, and by engaging young people, ensure that there are greater numbers of students considering studying science post-16," he added.
"In 2004, 15,000 more pupils obtained a good [A to C] GCSE in a modern foreign language than in 1997.
"This government is committed to increasing the take up of languages at all levels of education through its modern foreign languages strategy.
"It is important to start early, that is why we have a new focus on languages in primary and by 2010 every child aged seven to 11 will be able to learn one or more languages as part of their curriculum.
"In addition, 400 specialist language schools will be working with other local schools to teach languages."
