Petition · past parliament

Make British sign language a compulsory subject in education nationwide

Rejected 21 signatures

What the petition asks

After taking British Sign Language as a GCSE/BTEC option, I discovered it wasn’t widely popular and encouraged in schools. When hearing the difficulties that deaf/hard of hearing people can face daily due to not many people knowing how to sign, it tells us we should take action.
In the UK there are 11 million people who are deaf or hard of hearing. 151,000 us BSL, and 87,000 are deaf. People are often unaware of when a person is deaf and do not know how to communicate with hard of hearing/deaf people. BSL is an option in few schools but should be part of the curriculum. Please support this petition as this may one day affect someone you are close to, and it is fair that 11 million people should not be sectioned off from society because of hearing difficulties.

Why it was rejected

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

Timeline

4 Oct 2019 Petition opened for signatures
8 Oct 2019 Rejected by the Petitions Committee

Key facts

Signatures 21
Status Rejected
Rejected 8 Oct 2019

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