ALL languages should have exams redeveloped for 2017

Share your campaign with us so we can advocate for ALL languages to be redeveloped

Punjabi G.c.s.e/a-Level To Be Axed ? – WHAT’S HAPPENING?
www.sikhsangat.com
Punjabi G.c.s.e/a-Level To Be Axed ? – posted in WHATS HAPPENING?: Punjabi Faces The Axe In Britain SARIKA SHARMA [Taken from Sikhchic] http://invalid.invalid/

Exam boards in the United Kingdom plan to drop qualifications in Punjabi along with other languages. While the issue has worried scholars, it has become a political issue in the current British election season.

Punjabi is the third most spoken language in the country after English and Polish according to 2011 census.

If exam boards AQA and OCR go ahead as planned and discontinue GCSE’s (secondary school level) and A level (college level) exams, foreign languages such as Polish, Punjabi, Gujarati, Bengali, Modern Hebrew, Turkish and Portuguese could face the axe.

Currently, Punjabi is an exam option that students can take at GCSE/A-level. Usually it is not offered at schools, but in many cases, like in Newcastle, one can take the exam at a gurdwara. Generally, a GCSE/A-level has to be offered officially through a certified exam board, main ones being AQA and OCR.

Punjabi scholars are wary of the development.

Dr Navtej Kaur Purewal, Deputy Director of South Asia Institute, SOAS University of London, says the move is a sign of the times.

“Modern languages are still widely associated with European languages such as German and French, while languages such as Punjabi are given lesser status and viewed as community languages. The irony is that in the 2011 Census, Punjabi was the 3rd most widely spoken language in the UK, having dropped from being 2nd in the 2001 Census due to the rise of Polish which has overtaken Punjabi,” she says.