Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 17 September 2017 to Question 112129, on sign language: GCSE, whether a Level 2 qualification in British Sign Language would be accepted as equivalent to a GCSE for the English Baccalaureate.

The Government is committed to the education of all children and young people with special educational needs or a disability, including those with a hearing impairment.

As part of the GCSE reform process, which began in 2011, the Government carried out equality impact assessments at every stage of its review. We expect the reformed GCSEs to remain universal qualifications and therefore accessible for all, with good teaching and applying reasonable adjustments where appropriate. The Government has no current plans to consider new GCSEs.

Qualifications which are not GCSEs or AS levels do not count towards the English Baccalaureate, which is a performance measure for schools.