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Petition · past parliament

It is time to teach British Sign Language (BSL) in UK schools.

Rejected 11 signatures

What the petition asks

There are more than 900,000 people - 45,000 of them children - in the UK. Only about 151,000 people can "speak" BSL and 87,000 of these are deaf. Deaf people have a human right to be able to communicate. It is not a difficult lanuage to learn and should be widely taught in the UK
Source: Action on Hearing Loss (formerly the RNID)

Why it was rejected

There was already a petition about this issue. Duplicates are rejected so signatures collect in one place.

Make British Sign Language part of the National Curriculum.

Timeline

27 Mar 2017 Petition opened for signatures
7 Apr 2017 Rejected by the Petitions Committee

Key facts

Signatures 11
Status Rejected
Rejected 7 Apr 2017

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Source: the official petition page. Last checked 15 Jul 2026.