Foreign Languages: GCE A-level

To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how many pupils achieved an A level in a foreign language in each of the last 10 years. (247487)

The information is provided in the table.

*Number of A-level passes in modern foreign languages by 16-18 year-olds in all schools, 1999 to 2008*
Subject	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008
French	16,371	14,060	14,148	13,214	12,637	12,298	11,802	12,063	12,028	12,605
German	7,885	7,092	7,096	6,188	5,916	5,523	5,141	5,456	5,557	5,560
Spanish	4,323	4,207	4,174	4,314	4,434	4,576	4,883	5,148	5,431	5,728
Other modern languages	3,269	3,404	3,260	3,728	3,861	4,143	4,396	4,914	4,998	5,530
All modern languages	31,848	28,763	28,678	27,444	26,848	26,540	26,222	27,581	28,014	29,423
Note: Figures are derived from the Achievement and Attainment Tables data. 'Other Modern Languages' include Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, Dutch, Gujarati, Italian, Japanese, Panjabi, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Turkish and Urdu

Volume 489: debated on Tuesday 17 March 2009