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Authors and teachers’ leaders have called for urgent action to reverse the dwindling popularity of English in sixth forms after it emerged that there had been a 13% decline this summer in entries for all types of English A-level.
Ministers are being urged to review recently reformed English GCSEs because of concerns that the new qualifications are “sucking the joy” out of the subject and may be putting students off pursuing it at a higher level.
According to provisional data from the exams watchdog Ofqual, entries for English language A-level dropped from just under 18,000 in 2018 to less than 14,000 this year. Uptake was also down for English literature, from 41,000 to 37,500, while combined English language and literature dropped from 9,000 to 7,600.
“We should be very, very concerned at this drop in the study of English,” said the author and former teacher Joanne Harris, whose works included the best-selling novel Chocolat. “This, combined with the loss of so many public libraries, could be the start of a catastrophic decline in the quality of our secondary students, graduates and future colleagues and employees.”
The award-winning poet, novelist and teacher Kate Clanchy, who is writer-in-residence at Oxford Spires Academy, where she sees the impact of the reformed GCSEs on pupils, said: “English has just been made less fun. It’s hard to describe just how deeply disastrous it is. English is under pressure in universities as well. We need these people to come through.”
This year’s A-level cohort, who will receive their results on Thursday, were the first to sit the new GCSE English qualifications introduced in 2017 as part of the former education secretary Michael Gove’s sweeping qualification changes, which were intended to make exams more rigorous and challenging.
Teachers have since expressed concerns that the new GCSE English language exam is focused too heavily on analysis of historical texts, while English literature involves memorising large amounts of content. The changes, they say, have hit the least able the hardest.
One assistant headteacher said: “GCSE English language is sucking the joy out of the study of how we communicate: the power and beauty in words. English literature favours those with excellent memories; it has reduced our most magnificent pieces of writing to a collection of quotations.”
Geoff Barton, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “It is right that we should have the highest aspirations for all our students, but this should not equate to turning exams into a joyless slog. We are concerned that the current GCSE specifications are failing to encourage a love of English in young people and this year’s entries at A-level appear to confirm our fears.”
Other factors may also be at play, including the government’s drive to increase the uptake of science, technology, engineering and maths – the Stem subjects.
“English has always been thought of (quite wrongly) as an ‘easy’ (or even vocationally irrelevant) subject for English native speakers. It’s not,” said Harris. “Falling levels of literacy suggest that its importance in all areas of the curriculum – and indeed, in life – has not been sufficiently emphasised.
“It also doesn’t help when politicians make untrue and ill-advised comments about the lack of career opportunities in the arts or indeed when secondary education is constantly portrayed as solely vocational, rather than a means of enriching a person’s life experience.
“It is vitally important that the government now pays attention to what teachers have been saying for years: that the way to promote literacy is to make reading enjoyable, instead of using it as a means of returning to a failed agenda of ‘literary tradition’, rote-learning and pointless, demoralising testing.”
Figures from the Joint Council for Qualifications, which represents the exam boards, reveal a 15% decline in the study of English A-level between 2016 and 2018.
The writer and poet Michael Rosen, who is the professor of children’s literature at Goldsmiths, University of London, said the new English literature GCSE was more “mechanical” and less about creative interpretation of books. “The student’s own response is not seen as relevant. For some people who before might have thought English was worth a go, they’ve felt that maybe it’s not what they thought English was going to be about,” he said.
Dr Rebecca Fisher, the chief executive of the English Association, said: “Without a diverse, rich, engaging curriculum at GCSE, more students will be discouraged from pursuing their studies at A-level, but it’s important to acknowledge the other factors, such as the government’s support for Stem subjects at the cost of the arts and humanities, and the misperception of risk associated with studying humanities subjects in a period of economic instability.”
The Department for Education insisted English remained one of the most popular subjects: “We are confident that the reformed GCSEs in English are better preparing pupils for further study at A-level.”
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