Commenting on the British Council study Boys
studying foreign languages at GCSE in schools in England,
commissioned by the Education Policy Institute, Kevin
Courtney, Joint General Secretary of the
National Education Union, said:
“Gender stereotypes limit opportunities for both boys and
girls. While schools do a great deal to provide all students with
a broad and balanced curriculum, as this report shows, gender
continues to shape the subjects chosen by pupils at GCSE. Girls
are more likely to study languages, boys more likely to study
physics – and this gender bias limits life chances for
both.
“Schools can open up those horizons for both sexes, however
Government policy is in many cases a barrier to
this.
“Persistent cuts to school and college funding mean that
many leaders are faced with having to cut teachers they can no
longer afford, which in turn leads to cuts in subject choice.
Many of the suggestions of how to teach more inclusively, such as
smaller class sizes and more learning time, rely on additional
funding and changes to education policy which currently promotes
superficial progress over deep learning.
“We are also in the midst of a recruitment and retention
crisis in education with teachers leaving due to unnecessarily
high workload, the high stakes accountability system of Ofsted
and league tables and year upon year of real-terms pay cuts.
Until Government properly listens to the profession on these
issues, Modern Foreign Languages amongst other subjects is
unlikely to be available to every student.”
