Government fails to provide assurances on the future of Turkish language qualifications

News from Rt. Hon Joan Ryan MP: Government fails to provide assurances on the future of Turkish language qualifications. Writing in response to a letter from Rt. Hon Joan Ryan MP, Labour’s Member of Parliament for Enfield North, the Secretary of State was only willing to confirm that her Department would work with awarding organisations and Ofqual – the body responsible for regulating qualifications, examinations and assessments in England - “to enable as wide a range of languages as possible to be maintained at GCSE and A-Level.”

Before the General Election, Ms Morgan offered a “guarantee” that the future of GCSEs and A-levels in subjects like Polish, Gujarati, Panjabi, Bengali and Turkish would be safe under a Conservative Government. Turkish language qualifications have been under threat since the OCR examination board made a decision to withdraw them from 2017. 

In light of the Secretary of State’s letter, Joan Ryan MP has tabled further written questions to the Department for Education on this important issue.

Rt. Hon Joan Ryan MP, Labour’s Member of Parliament for Enfield North, said:

"I am very concerned by the Secretary of State’s response.

I asked specific questions in my letter about what steps she intended to take to end the uncertainty over the future of Turkish language qualifications. These were not addressed and no commitment was forthcoming from Ms Morgan regarding fulfilling her pre-election promise.  

I will continue to bring pressure to bear on the Government to ensure these vital qualifications, and those of other modern foreign languages, are secured.”