Commenting on the report from the British Council and
Education Policy Institute on the gender gap in foreign
languages, Geoff Barton, General Secretary of the Association of
School and College Leaders, said:
“Despite the best efforts of schools to dispel gender
stereotypes, the fact remains that more girls choose creative
arts and language GCSEs, more boys choose computing and
technology subjects, and the attainment of boys lags behind girls
in general.
“Schools are doing their utmost to address these issues and
we welcome the research findings in this report in respect of
languages.
“There is a particular problem with the take-up of
languages because the government has tried to drive up entry
rates through the use of school performance measures without
addressing the fact that schools are desperately short of
teachers and funding, and the grading of language GCSEs and
A-levels is too severe.
“We are pleased that exams regulator Ofqual has recently
decided to make grading less severe in GCSE French and German and
we are continuing to press for similar action at A-level. Beyond
this we need a national strategy to revive languages which is
based on encouraging a love of these subjects and which is
properly resourced in terms of teachers and funding.”
