C'est vrai?

The GCSE exam results are out, but the carping about 'exams getting easier' is muted this time by a more important concern.

It seems schoolchildren aren't bothering to learn foreign languages any more.

Naturally, this means many schools are 'letting their language teachers go' (an euphemism for sacking them).

So, even those few who still want to learn French or German soon won't have the option. Sound familiar? It's already happened in chemistry departments in universities, and most school science classes have very limited practical experimentation - mostly because of the cotton-wool-wrapping of the nail-biting, terrified-of-shadows safety-conscious... but more of them later.

Let's see what the UK's future adults are learning.

The greatest beneficiary of the decline in languages has been religious studies - up by 8.2%.

Religious studies, for God's sake! How many damn preachers do we need?

Computer-related classes, and PE, have both increased student numbers by 6%.

So, we'll have a whole generation of preachers who communicate by Internet while pedalling exercise bicycles. None of whom, unfortunately, can speak to the country next door. Although the country next door might not regard that as unfortunate, considering what this lot are likely to be saying.

History has increased by 1.9% and maths by 1.2%. So all is not lost. The pedalling preachers from rabidnonsense.com might have some knowledge of the past (although they'll more likely learn how to change it), and they will at least be capable of filing a tax return.

However, one increase made me shake my head in disbelief. Currently it's considered separately from the mainstream subjects (yes, I regret to say that religious studies is considered a mainstream subject) as it has less than 100,000 students annually. Incidentally, this year, so does German.

Media, film and TV studies have increased by 25.9%. They now have more students than Chemistry or Physics.

The couch-potato class is growing. So we'll have plenty of screen-watchers in the future.

At least the pedalling priests will have an audience.