Written question asked by Lord Willetts (Conservative) on Monday, 23 October 2006, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Wednesday, 25 October 2006. It was answered by Lord Knight of Weymouth (Labour) on Wednesday, 1 November 2006 on behalf of the Department for Education and Skills.

GCSEs

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many pupils gained A* to C GCSEs in (a) French and (b) German in each year since 1997.

Answer

The following table shows the number of 15¹-year-old pupils gaining an A*-C grade in GCSE French and German in each year since 1997.

	French	German
¹ Aged 15 at the start of the academic year, i.e. 31 August.² Data for 2006 are provisional. Data for all other years are final.Note:Figures are rounded to the nearest 100.
1997	149,500	68,900
1998	149,100	69,400
1999	158,000	71,900
2000	158,500	69,800
2001	165,300	73,200
2002	161,100	70,800
2003	150,200	65,300
2004	150,200	68,000
2005	143,200	65,100
2006²	133,000	57,800

Secondary information