The Languages Company

Despite last year’s stabilization, there has been a further small decline in languages take up at GCSE this year.

Although nothing like as dramatic as the falls suggested in the press, there has been an overall decline in the number of languages awards in the UK -  from 362338 to 348190 (just over 14000, mainly in French and German) The figures for England are almost identical (see table below).   As last year there has also been a decline in the total number of  subject entries,  which are down by nearly 95,000 (1.8%) .   This compares with a decrease in languages of 3.9% in both the UK and in England. So, although the decline is not as sharp as the headline figures suggest, there has been a measurable fall in languages entries.  It remains to be seen whether this  corresponds to any increase in alternative qualifications such as Asset or NVQ.

On a more positive note, Spanish numbers have  again increased (by nearly 1%) and A* to C grades for all languages have continued a rising trend, French is up from 70.1% to 71.9%, German from 74% to 75.2%, Spanish from 74.4% to 75.2% and other languages from 85% to 86.1%. The percentage achieving the very top grades of A* and A have also risen slightly for all languages.

It is too soon to make an overall analysis of this year’s results, but they do suggest significant changes in popularity of subjects including increases in take up of the core  - STEM – subjects . This may have implications for future policy on language capability.  Comparisons with some other subjects are contained in the table below which confirm this interesting realignment (England only – although UK results are broadly comparable).

PRESS REPORTS on GCSE LANGUAGES 2010

After a few years of relative indifference, the press ran a number of major articles on the decline on language take-up in 2010.  Although somewhat misleading, as the decline in 2010 was not in itself very significant, this has served to raise the issue at a critical moment.  Interesting comments were made by The Independent,  The Guardian and The Telegraph.