§ Sir Harold Wilsonasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what information she has received about the trend in the numbers of school pupils receiving instruction in Russian, and the numbers of schools providing such facilities, over the past five years.
§ Mrs. Shirley Williams:My Department does not receive statistical returns of the number of schools providing instruction in particular subjects or of pupils who have followed particular courses. Between 1971 and 1976 the number of entries for the GCE O-level and CSE summer examinations in Russian fell from 3,381 to 2,439. In the same period entries for the GCE A-level summer examination in Russian fell from 846 to 513. These figures relate to entries from further education as well as from schools.
§ Sir Harold Wilsonasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science having regard to the Final Act of the Helsinki Conference, what steps she is taking to encourage the teaching of the Russian language in British schools and universities.
§ Mrs. Shirley Williams:I believe there is a strong case for the development of Russian language teaching and a number of other minority subjects in some schools and university programmes. Decisions 820W about the curriculum of individual schools, however, are a matter for the local education authorities and schools concerned. The universities are themselves responsible for their own academic programmes; 26 universities offer undergraduate courses in Russian.