Member News
24th August 2010
Andrew Hall, chief executive of the Assessment and Qualifications Alliance, writes for ePolitix.com on GCSE results day.
Congratulations to all students receiving their results today.
This year's GCSE results contain some really good news with increased entries for separate sciences and improved performance in English and mathematics.
Continuing the positive increases in entries for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) subjects we saw last week at A level, GCSE is continuing the trend with some significant increases in entries for the separate sciences: chemistry is up 32.2 per cent from last year and physics up 32.1. This is really encouraging, particularly as it will help UK students to compete more strongly in the global economy and it is great news for the UK economy as a whole.
The same unfortunately cannot be said for the study of foreign languages. Entries have continued to decline with French and German both down. But even here it is not all bad news: entries are up in Spanish, Portugese, Polish and Chinese. So perhaps what we are seeing is that those students who continue to study languages are making more informed choices about which subjects they choose – this seems to be particularly evident in the case of Chinese.
Today's GCSE students are part of a rapidly changing world and are adapting to the different needs of tomorrow's employment opportunities.
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