France, August 26: For the first time ever, French has slipped out of the top 10 of the most popular subjects at GCSE – the most obvious sign of the seemingly inexorable slide in languages take-up in schools, which employers say will damage British students on the international jobs market.
Fewer than one in four youngsters (22.7 per cent) now sits French, with the numbers falling from 341,604 students in 2002 to 177,618. This year alone, there was a further 5.9 per cent fall. German has slumped from 130,976 to 70,619.
Last night, exam board leaders called for a summit with ministers to try to stem the decline. The figures, released as part of this year’s GCSE results, led to Andrew Hall, the chief executive of the Assessment and Qualifications Alliance, to claim that yesterday was “a rather sad day for languages”.
–Agencies