Written question asked by Phyllis Starkey (Labour) on Tuesday, 26 June 2001, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Tuesday, 3 July 2001. It was answered by Ivan Lewis (Labour) on Tuesday, 3 July 2001 on behalf of the Department for Education and Skills.

Dept for Education and Skills

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills, how many students obtained GCSE and A-level examinations in (a) Urdu, (b) Bengali, (c) Gujerati, (d) Hindi, (e) Mandarin, (f) Cantonese and (g) modern languages in each of the last five years. - Includes table. (Table corrected at 11.07.2001 at 371 c555W)

Answer: Dr. Starkey: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many students obtained GCSE and A-level examinations in (a) Urdu, (b) Bengali, (c) Gujerati, (d) Hindi, (e) Mandarin, (f) Cantonese and (g) modern languages in each of the last five years. [1299] Mr. Ivan Lewis: The number of students of all ages who obtained GCSE and GCE A-level passes in the various languages over the last five years are shown in the table. Figures for Mandarin and Cantonese are not available, data for Chinese as a whole have been provided instead. _________________________________________________________________________________________________. 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 GCSE (a) Urdu 5,658 6,660 6,370 6,497 6,677 (b) Bengali 2,116 2,220 2,146 2,152 2,041 (c) Gujerati 1,313 1,309 1,026 1,189 1,200 (d) Hindi -- -- -- -- -- (e)(f) Chinese 1,956 2,048 1,937 1,917 2,028 (g) All modern languages 450,244 444,639 460,186 472,010 476,050 GCE A-Level (a) Urdu 833 837 591 746 725 (b) Bengali 99 98 108 37 53 (c) Gujerati -- -- -- -- -- (d) Hindi 31 19 13 8 -- (e)(f) Chinese 972 887 1,074 1,165 1,225 (g) All modern languages 32,937 32,340 31,298 30,224 27,455 _________________________________________________________________________________________________.

Secondary information