GCSE results: French 'no longer a popular subject'

The number of children leaving school with a decent grasp of foreign languages has plummeted to a record low in the UK, according to an article in today's Telegraph. For the first time, French no longer appears in a list of the 10 most popular subjects at GCSE level. Furthermore, exam entries have dropped by almost 50 per cent in a decade. The problem can be traced to Labour's decision to make languages optional for the first time in 2004, allowing thousands of pupils to drop the subjects at 14. Apart from campaigning to make a language subject compulsory again at GCSE level, more needs to be done to convince educators and pupils of the relevancy of languages in the world today. After all, with the spread of English, Spanish, and for that matter, Chinese, the global village is becoming increasingly bilingual. In tomorrow's world, this will leave monolingual Anglophones at a disadavantage unless something is done fast to address the problem.