BRECHT and Molière may have taken their last bow for A-level students. Set texts by classic European authors are to be axed from modern language A-levels offered by English exam boards.

Voltaire, Pushkin and Mann are among dozens of established authors who have fallen victim to a shift towards studying the contemporary culture of countries.

From September pupils will no longer have the option to study set texts; instead, they will write a short essay on a literary subject of their choosing.

The dumping of the pantheon of foreign literary greats – together with a wider down-grading of literature – has driven some of Britain’s leading academic schools, including Eton and Winchester, to abandon foreign language A-levels. It has also sparked accusations that the education authorities are “amputating” Britain from its European cultural heritage.

“Where literature is remotely present [in the new A-levels], there are no prescribed texts and its position is optional and marginal,” said Josep-Lluis Gonzalez, head of modern languages at Eton, in Berkshire. Eton is one of 16 schools that have dropped modern languages A-levels in favour of a new, more traditional exam, the PreU.

“Language teaching has a double nature – oral fluency and sophistication. The sophistication is now being dumbed down,” said Gonzalez.

Keith Pusey, director of studies at Winchester, said: “We think the literature basis of these subjects is absolutely crucial. It teaches you to think when you read a piece of great literature. It gives you historical and social context – it gives you so much.”

The removal of literary set texts has added to concerns over the devaluing of languages after a decision last month to remove oral exams from GCSEs. It followed a review by Lord Dearing, the government education adviser, who said the test was “too stressful and too short”.

Frederic Raphael, author of The Glittering Prizes, a novel that followed the fortunes of a group of 1950s Cambridge graduates, called the removal of the set texts “grotesque”.

He said: “We are cutting off our own limbs. It is not amputating the foreigners and detaching their fingers from our precious boat; it is chopping off whole areas of what is basically our culture. The lack of nerve on the part of the whole establishment of teaching is just grotesque.”

The A-level system removed the obligation to study literature in the 1980s. But it still allows schools the option to concentrate heavily on literary works. Under the syllabus offered by Edexcel, one of the three exam boards in England, pupils can study two works in depth, chosen from prescribed lists of texts. In French, they include Voltaire’s Candide and Les Mains Sales, a play by Jean-Paul Sartre.

Under the new syllabus, students are expected to write an essay of 240-270 words on a research-based topic of their choosing, which does not have to be literary. There are few other opportunities for literature.

St Albans High School for Girls in Hertfordshire has decided to continue offering A-levels. But teachers are so worried about the lack of literature in the new courses – and the effect this could have on pupils’ future performance at university – that they are offering extra literary classes alongside A-levels.

“The lack of set texts is one of the most serious concerns,” said Helen Everett, the school’s head of modern languages. “Unfortunately, it seems the way of the world is that not enough people are studying languages so they [the authorities] think ‘let’s make them easier’.”

A source at one of the three English boards – AQA, Edexcel and OCR – said the decision to ditch set texts had been made to “ease the burden of assessment”. None of the boards commented officially beyond saying it had designed the syllabuses within the framework set by the government’s Qualifications and Curriculum Authority.

The authority said literature had not been compulsory since the 1980s, adding: “For every new A-level language specification there is an opportunity to study some literature, as is the case at present.”

It said there was nothing to stop English schools opting for language A-levels offered by exam boards in Northern Ireland and Wales, which have retained lists of set texts.

OFF THE READING LIST

FRENCH

- Albert Camus, The Plague

- Joseph Joffo, A Bag of Marbles

- Molière, The Bourgeois Gentleman

- Marcel Proust, A Love of Swann’s

- Françoise Sagan, Hello Sadness

- Voltaire, Candide

GERMAN

- Bertolt Brecht, The Good Woman of Sichuan

- Franz Kafka, Metamorphosis

- Eduard von Keyserling, Sultry Days

- Thomas Mann, Disorder and Early Sorrow

OTHERS

- Isabel Allende, Eva Luna

- Anton Chekhov, Uncle Vanya

- Dante, Inferno

- Federico Garcia Lorca, The House of Bernarda Alba

- Luigi Pirandello, Six Characters in Search of an Author

- Alexander Pushkin, The Queen of Spades

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