A headteachers’ union has raised “severe concern” over the continuing decline in the number of students taking English literature at A level and called for a GCSE qualification in the subject to be urgently reviewed.
Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said it should be “perfectly clear” to ministers that government reforms to GCSE English literature are putting students off the subject “because of the grind of memorising large amounts of traditional texts”.
His comments, ahead of A-level results day tomorrow, follow an 8.9 per cent decline in the number of entries for the award in English literature year-on-year.
The provisional entries for English literature A level, which were published in May, reveal that 32,910 students entered for the qualification in summer 2022, down from 36,135 in summer 2021.
Mr Barton said that while A level entries were up 4.2 per cent this year, “we have to express severe concern about the continuing decline in English entries at A level, with English literature down 8.9 per cent this year”.
“It should be perfectly clear to the government that its reforms to GCSE English literature are obviously putting students off the subject because of the grind of memorising large amounts of traditional texts.”
Mr Barton said that literature is “a vital part” of our “cultural past” as well as ”our diverse cultural present”.
He called for the government to “urgently” review the GCSE specification for English literature and to take “action” to “stop the spiral of decline we are seeing at A level”.
Mr Barton also welcomed seeing subjects such as psychology and sociology seeing big rises of 11.6 per cent and 9.5 per cent respectively.
In 2017, reforms to the qualification removed the “spoken language unit” as well as the open-book exam and the controlled assessment questions.
In 2020, the National Association for the Teaching of English (NATE) surveyed English teachers delivering the new GCSE, with the majority saying they did not believe their students found the course rewarding.
Speaking to Tes earlier this month, Sam Tuckett, senior researcher for post-16 education and skills at the Education Policy Institute, said that the entry figures marked “the continuation of a very worrying trend”.
“There are several reasons for this: there is still a big push for Stem [Science, technology, engineering and maths] subjects and the perception that earnings are lower for those who study humanities remains. The ‘unpopular’ new-style English GCSE is still in place and the same funding rules are in place that result in students being encouraged to do three, instead of four, A levels.”
A Department for Education spokesperson said that English literature “remains a popular subject” and that the National Curriculum for English “aims to ensure that all pupils appreciate our rich literary heritage”.
“We have reformed GCSE and A level in English Language and Literature to be more rigorous and better prepare pupils for further study and employment.”
