§ Mr. Ronald Brownasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if she will publish in theOfficial Reporther reasons for refusing the setting of an O-level examination in Esperanto and her reasons for setting O-level examinations for Amharic Slovene; and how many potential candidates exist for each language.
§ Miss Margaret Jackson:My right hon. Friend does not determine which subjects are offered at O-level; that is a matter for the GCE examining boards in conjunction with the schools. I understand that only one board has been asked to offer Esperanto and it decided not to do so because of lack of evidence of demand from the schools, and on educational grounds. O-level examinations in minority languages such as Amharic almost always originate from links between the board or university and the country concerned. Six candidates were entered with one board for Amharic in 1977. Slovene is no longer offered. I have no information about the potential number of candidates for these languages.