Wendy Brown

Last updated 11:47, Wednesday, 10 September 2008

Having completed my last quota of GCSE marking this summer (German speaking test) I feel a need to comment on the serious decline in standards over the years – despite assurances to the contrary from the powers-that-be.

Up to some 10 years ago you could guarantee that some centres would include some good candidates. This year I marked over 200 before I came across a really good one – and that was a German national.

About 50 per cent couldn’t string a sentence together. Of course, these days, following the guidelines, we don’t worry too much about grammar. If the candidate gets their meaning across, it’s fine. But too many can’t even do that.

Some answered in French, others in English with hopeful German endings – “ich drinken in die pubses”. Some offered a sullen “dunno” to every question. Some said absolutely nothing.

And it’s not just the lack of language skills which alarms me, but the lack of general intelligence. One of the topics in the speaking test is travel and tourism, where pupils are expected to tell you what there is for tourists in their area.

After a centre from Wolverhampton where the pupils, perhaps understand-ably, had little say, I came across two centres from Stratford upon Avon.

“Ah,” I thought. “Now these pupils will have something to tell me.” After many replies with; “there is a park and a cinema”, I waited with bated breath. Surely at least one of them would tell me it was Shakespeare’s birthplace and you could visit his house? Eventually, after 97 candidates, one bright boy did just that.

But one of the oddest responses was from one candidate who, when asked what he had for breakfast, replied; “Chips.” I repeated the question, assuming he had misunderstood.

“Chips,” he said again. And, at the end of the test, he confirmed that he did, in fact, have chips for breakfast.

At least this year I can say “never again”.