'The world is changing: would you rather your child learned a foreign language or computer code?'

WHEN I was helping to fashion the national curriculum in the 1980s, I selected 10 subjects. The basic subjects were English, maths and science and seven more to ensure a rounded education, with art andother creative subjects among them, writes Ken Baker.
Would you rather your child learned a PC language or a foreign language?Would you rather your child learned a PC language or a foreign language?
Would you rather your child learned a PC language or a foreign language?

The idea was to prepare GCSEs for the 10 subjects and hope that 70 per cent of schools could reach the standard. In fact it proved to be too ambitious. You do not have to worry too much about bright children because they will survive any education system, and that is true right across the world – if they are not neglected they will do very well.

I was more concerned about the long tail of under-achievers who were not coping with such a demanding curriculum. So I very much welcomed the Dearing report in 2003 which recommended a simplification of the curriculum.

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Certain subjects like history, geography and a foreign language were made voluntary, as it were, at GCSE. The world did not fall apart because of that.

There was a much greater variety of GCSEs; indeed too many were rather light and careless ones which were quite properly excluded in 2010. On the whole, however, pupils got a muchmore rounded education as a result.

In 2010, Michael Gove decided to impose the EBacc on the education system. It covers just five subjects: English, maths, science, history or geography and a foreign language. Everyone is expected to take it. The EBacc is the policy of an American educationist called ED Hirsch.

There are very few examples around the world where it has worked, but nonetheless it is what we have got, and of course it has had very serious consequences. A whole range of subjects have been dropped.

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From 2010 until now, art, music, drama and dance have all declined at GCSE; that is irrefutable. I am very concerned about design and technology, a subject that I introduced in 1988, where the take-up has fallen by 30 per cent.

By the age of 16, many youngsters will not have had any experience of a technical education at all. It is not surprising that that is in huge contrast to Germany where by the age of 18, some 70 per cent of young people have had experience of a technical education, while in Britain it is 30 per cent.

The policy of the Government is to expand technical education, so what proposals does the Minister have to arrest the decline in designand technology? For example, could a bursary be given to teachers of design and technology similar to those which are available to the teachers of maths and physics? There should be a policy to reverse this decline.

The other subject that worries me considerably is the status of computing. At GCSE there are two exams – computer science, which is a tough exam, and a less tough one in IT. This year the take-up of the tough exam rose by 4,000 but the easier one fell by 11,000.

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This June, 7,000 fewer students took an exam in computing. This is the digital revolution and the Government have a digital strategy, so where do those figures fit into the strategy? At this point I want to put a positive proposal. It is not a wrecking proposal, but a positive and helpful one.

The concept of a choice between subjects in the EBacc is already in place because students must choose whether to study history or geography. Why can there not be a choice between a foreign language and computing? Some 300,000 students study a foreign language while only 65,000 take computing.

It is more important that the students of today should have an understanding of a computer language than a smattering of a foreign language, particularly when we are on the edge of having instantaneous translation.

It will soon be possible to speak in your own language and have it translated into the language of the person you are talking to, and his response translated into your own language.

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Given that, I do not believe that the importance of learning a foreign language is anything like as great as it was. This is a positive proposal to offer a choice at the age of 16 between foreign languages and computing which I hope will be considered seriously by the Government.

Ken Baker is a Tory peer and former Education Secretary. He spoke in a House of Lords debate entitled English Baccalaureate: Creative and Technical Subjects. This is an edited version.

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