Languages: GCE A-level
(asked on 12th April 2021) - View Source
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 23 March 2021 to Question 168825 on Languages: GCE A-level and GCSE and with reference to the data in provided in the Other modern languages category for each of the years from 2015-16 to 2019-20, how many entries there were for pupils studying (a) Arabic, (b) Bengali, (c) Chinese, (d) Gujarati, (e) Japanese, (f) Punjabi, (g) Persian and (h) Urdu at A-level; and if he will make a statement.
The number of A level entries1 by students in England aged 16 to 182 in Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, Gujarati, Japanese, Punjabi, Persian and Urdu between 2015/16 – 2019/20 are provided in the table below:
| Subject entries5 |
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2015/163 | 2016/17 | 2017/18 | 2018/19 | 2019/204 |
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Arabic | 460 | 485 | 504 | 615 | 276 |
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Bengali | 34 | 38 | 23 | 28 | 7 |
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Chinese | 2445 | 2517 | 2816 | 1924 | 1402 |
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Gujarati | 9 | 11 | 11 | 10 | 6 |
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Japanese | 179 | 170 | 202 | 177 | 78 |
| |
Persian | 129 | 121 | 137 | 150 | 51 |
| |
Punjabi | 87 | 91 | 106 | 97 | 59 |
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Urdu | 317 | 325 | 341 | 339 | 188 |
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1. Covers A level examination results for the academic year specified in England in all schools and colleges. |
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2. Covers students aged 16, 17 or 18 at the start of the relevant academic year, i.e. 31 August. | |||||||
3. Final data; data for all other years is revised data except 2019/20 | |||||||
4. Provisional data; data for all other years is revised data except 2015/16 | |||||||
5. Where more than one A level is taken by a student in the same subject ‘discounting’ rules have been applied to ensure performance measures only give credit once for teaching a single course of study. | |||||||
Note: the number of A level entries is influenced by the overall population of students at the end of 16 to 18 study, which was around 16,000 fewer in 2019/20 than 2018/19, or a decrease of 2.6%.