The Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) results data published this week includes the number of entries for each subject at each level, as well as the corresponding figures for previous years.

Tes Scotland has sorted the entries data for Higher in 2024 and 2019, the last year before the Covid pandemic hit Scotland, to show the 30 most popular Highers in recent years.

Trends in SQA Higher entries

Some striking trends include:

• The growth of the relatively new subject applications of mathematics, for which entries have soared by 85 per cent from 2023 (see last year’s subject-by-subject Higher entry figures here) to 2024. While there has been praise for the opportunities that the subject has opened up for students who might not consider the traditional maths route, earlier this year the SQA raised concerns about the volume of students being presented for both subjects at National 5 at the same time.
• Human biology is now a more popular Higher than biology.
• PE has consolidated its position as the Higher with the third-highest uptake, and is now the only subject other than English and maths with more than 11,000 entries.

• SQA results: Big issues to emerge from SQA exam results 2024
• Subject focus: Higher grade boundaries by subject
• Related: How big is the gap in SQA results around Scotland?

• French has dropped another place since last year (to 23rd, having been 17th in 2019). Entries are actually up slightly compared with last year, although this is in the context of Higher entries across all subjects rising by nearly 4,500 (2.3 per cent). There are serious concerns about the place of languages in Scottish schools, although Spanish continues on an upward trajectory (entries have risen by 16.5 per cent in the past year).
• Amid long-running concerns about its health in Scottish schools, computing science has gone up a place since 2023, entries having risen by about 5 per cent.
• The only subject with more than 1,000 entries not to feature in our table above is music technology (1,070).

Overall trends in SQA data

The SQA annual results data for 2024, released on Tuesday, showed that pass rates were down and the attainment gap is now wider than it was in 2019 - the last year unaffected by the Covid pandemic - at National 5, Higher and Advanced Higher.

Education secretary Jenny Gilruth, in a statement on SQA results day, highlighted her concern about the “wide degree of variation in results between our 32 local authorities”.

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