ATL COMMENT ON FALL IN NUMBER OF PUPILS DOING A FOREIGN LANGUAGE AT GCSE

5 November 2007
 
Alison Ryan, education policy adviser at the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL), said:

“We are not surprised the relentless pressure of targets and school league tables have affected the exam choices made by many young people. 

“We regret that fewer students are studying a foreign language since in our increasingly global world young people will be disadvantaged if they do not know other languages or understand the cultures of other countries.

“Making students study a foreign language at secondary school did not necessarily give them the skills they needed, but removing the compulsion without having first introduced foreign languages in primary schools has seriously undermined language learning and cut the number of language teachers.  In the short-term this has damaged the careers of those teachers and in the longer-term it will mean fewer people available to teach foreign languages.”