The decline in the take-up of arts subjects at GCSE has increased five-fold over the past year, coinciding with a dramatic rise in young people studying EBacc subjects.
Posted: 10/03/2022
Arts Professional has an excellent, if worrying, article on the decline in the take up of arts subjects. See a snippet below and read the full article here. The article includes ways you get get your voice heard and comments from Deborah Annetts, Chief Executive of the Incorporated Society of Musicians, which manages the Bacc for the Future campaign.
Entries for GCSEs in arts subjects have fallen by 46,000 this year compared with last, according to new figures recording Englands exam entries for 2016.
The drift away from arts subjects is gathering pace. This years loss is more than five times the size of the loss in 2015, when candidate numbers fell by 9,000.
According to official statistics published by exam watchdog Ofqual, the number of GCSE exams being taken in art and design subjects, design and technology, drama, media film and TV studies, music, and performing/expressive arts have all fallen since last year.
The subject most seriously affected has been design and technology, which has attracted 19,000 fewer exam entries. Least affected has been music, with 1,500 fewer candidates.
The total number of GCSE entries in all subjects this year has grown by 0.3%, but over the same period, exam entries for arts subjects have fallen by 8%.
Let us know what you have done about this (signed the petition, written to your MP etc.). Do we want a collective ‘Lewisham’ response?
