Hundreds of state schools giving up on language exams

29 January 2009

The Guardian reports that hundreds of schools have all but given up on language exams according to new figures, which suggest learning a language is increasingly becoming a privilege only private school pupils can enjoy.

This year's league tables, published on 15 January, reveal for the first time the proportion of pupils in every school who are getting at least a C grade in a modern foreign language. Across the country just 30% are leaving secondary school with a good grade for a language GCSE.

But figures compiled by the Guardian suggest this 30% is largely dominated by private schools. Nearly 100 schools are putting fewer than ten pupils in for languages meaning their results do not register. Furthermore, in 60 schools not one pupil got a good grade in a GCSE language.

In 2004, the government removed a provision which required every pupil to learn a modern foreign language for GCSE. Since then, languages have fallen out of favour. They were included in this year's league tables to try to encourage schools to teach languages and identify those which aren't.

Duncan Byrne, chair of the Independent Schools' Modern Languages Association and assistant headteacher of Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School in Hertfordshire, said it had been a mistake to allow pupils to drop languages before GCSE.

He said: "We think maths is important for society, well so are languages in our global economy. Languages are used in industry. Sadly large firms and the finance sector are now going for European employees if they want languages skills."

He said the number of pupils who were taking French A-level had virtually halved since 1991.

To read the complete article, please visit the Guardian website.