Fury at dumbing down of education in Wales.

12.00.00am GMT Wed 5th Mar 2008

Eleanor Burnham has reacted furiously to Welsh Assembly Government plans to scrap the end-of-term oral exams in foreign language GCSEs. The recent announcement by the UK Government to scrap oral tests in language studies prompted Ms Burnham seek reassurance that the Welsh Education Minister was not going to follow suit. A waffled answer by the Minister in the Senedd chamber proved confusing but further enquires seem to confirm that the Minister does intend to scrap end of year foreign language tests.

Ms Burnham, Welsh Liberal Democrat spokesperson for Children and Young People, said:

"I am very disappointed that the Education Minister did not give me a clear answer in the Senedd about her plans to scrap the end-of-term oral exams in foreign language GCSEs. It is only after further enquires that we find out the real truth.

"Scrapping the end of term oral exams for language students is a ludicrous idea and the government's argument that the exams are too stressful for students undermines the credibility of our qualifications system. Confidence when speaking a foreign language is key to communicating, especially in this ever more interconnected world.

"The last thing that we need is to weaken students' ability to actually speak the languages taught."

Kirsty Williams AM, Welsh Liberal Democrat spokesperson for Education and Economy, described the Assembly Government's decision to follow in the footsteps of their Westminster colleagues as "foolish" and "lacking common sense."

Kirsty commented:" Wales is competing in an international market where employees from across the world often speak a minimum of 2 languages . If our future generations are to have a look in on these jobs they too will need to be multi-lingual.

"Learning a language is a layering of spoken, written and comprehension skills and a learner must have the confidence and ability to use these building blocks for overall fluency.

"By removing the basic foundations at an early stage the learning process will be made all the harder and the pressure will be all the greater for students and teachers at A' level and degree level.

"This dumbing down of our education system will only serve to put our children on a back foot; we will be in danger of falling yet further behind in the international employment market where the UK is already frowned upon for its poor linguistic skills."

Ends/Diwedd