Parool’s appointment comes as OCR continues to develop and improve its GCSE qualifications in advance of the 14-19 Government and wider curriculum reforms. With over 13,000 examination centres and schools now choosing OCR qualifications, Parool’s extensive cross-media background will help drive OCR’s GCSE product forward. Working with several leading marketing services agencies including Media Moguls for ethnic PR and community language outreach marketing, Parool has pooled some of the best in the business to complement OCR’s in-house communications team, delivering national GCSE campaign objectives that coincide with the launch of 48 new GCSE’s later this year - for first teaching from September 2009*.
As part of his remit, Patel is also keen to promote and highlight the full range of subjects including philosophy and ethics, world religions, modern foreign plus community language GCSE’s including Gujarati, Persian and Turkish which are only available through OCR. Parool believes that learning an additional ethnic community language should be seen as a great opportunity to stretch and expand a child’s skills from just a spoken language in the home to a more formally recognised qualification that also includes writing and reading skills. Patel explains,
“Community languages like OCR's GCSE Gujarati are becoming very important to third and fourth generation Indians living in England and Wales who also contribute directly to UKplc. Education has always been a very important contributing factor to social ascension, community cohesion and successful integration into the UK and this really should be acknowledged by the Government. At OCR we have always recognised just how important all our qualifications, including A levels and GCSEs, are to the Indian community and educational professionals. Our siblings study fastidiously, succeed well and progress to become highly qualified community leaders and respected professionals - lawyers, doctors, accountants, dentists, opticians and business entrepreneurs and most importantly even teachers - sharing their expertise and knowledge in a peer to peer manner and with future generations."
OCR is committed to providing the very best and up to date topics that have resonance and relevance in today’s changing society. As a leading examination body for Science and English, it continues to maintain extremely high standards internationally and also recognises that subjects have to be engaging for all generations. Patel continues: “Even before the changes and education reforms within the14-19 sector were being considered, OCR were already developing new qualifications, for example GCSE Psychology is now classified as a science, GCSE Citizenship is becoming a very popular subject to learn amongst migrant communities. OCR has always championed contemporary learning methods and innovation has been key to OCR’s ethos since GCSEs emerged twenty years ago. There is no doubt that GCSE and also GCE (A Level) qualifications such as Science, Maths, Chemistry and Physics offered by OCR form a positive route to a child's career progression but we have now updated OCR’s offering even further. Ask your own children’s schoolteachers about OCR's 48 new GCSEs which will be launched this year for first teaching in September 2009. We have even created a new GCSE Law qualification plus redeveloped all our 48 GCSEs to create courses which learners like your children and teenagers can really relate to. All of OCR's GCSEs are suitable for the 21st Century and are designed to provide very useful real-life applications for students, whether it be how to communicate effectively in Gujarati to your 'massa or massee, kakka and kakki' or whether it be understanding and applying cognitive psychology, cutting edge media advancements or the progressive role of communications and technology in the modern world”.
Teachers are able to find out more about OCR’s GCSE Gujarati from the new website www.GCSEchanges.com which provides a detailed explanation of the changes being made and the implications for teaching, as well as draft specifications of all GCSE subjects available to download from 4th April 2008.
All language GCSEs including Gujarati will be offered in short course and full course format with full flexibility offered to students and teachers. From September 2009 two short course options in either Listening and Speaking or Reading and Writing will be offered by OCR as part of its commitment to offering engaging, relevant and more flexibly assessed GCSE qualifications.
If you would like your child’s school to offer GCSE Gujarati as an added examination subject then make sure you let the school know before September 2009 and ask them to download the draft GCSE specification from www.GCSEchanges.com
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