A level Government & Politics: in good health but ripe for growth

Michelle Doyle Wildman, Chief Executive of the Political Studies Association

 

Our friends at the British Academy have published a new report on: ‘Subject choice trends in post-16 education in England: Investigating subject choice over the past 20 years’ in partnership with the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER).  

It has some handy searchable spreadsheets on all A level subjects including Government & Politics. These show that for 21/22:

• More females (52%) than males took Government & Politics A level
• Overall numbers taking the subject are up for the third year in a row – 18,251; some 7% of all students (compared to 83k taking Maths and 12% of students taking Geography).

 

However, worryingly, the academy/NFER found that:

• There has been a sharp reduction in the range of subjects chosen by students since 2015/16 (when AS and A level qualifications were decoupled)
• This appears to have led to fewer students (38% compared to 56% in 2015/16) studying humanities subjects like languages, English, and history. 
• Students are increasingly choosing all of their AS and A levels from a single subject group - for example, only taking social sciences subjects, or STEM subjects. Between 2015/16 and 2021/22, the proportion of students taking AS or A levels from a single subject group, increased from 21 per cent to 36 per cent
• The subject choices available to students have also narrowed over the past two decades – particularly modern foreign languages. While almost all post-16 education providers still offer some form of study in the arts, humanities, social sciences and STEM, most individual subjects appear to have declined in availability. 
• A young person’s background, environment and gender plays a key role in influencing their subject choices. For example, female students are significantly more likely to study an arts, humanities and social sciences AS- or A-level and less likely to study STEM.  

 

Interestingly, the report tells us that those taking A level Government & Politics are most likely to study History, Economics and English alongside it. And although this has been pretty much the same for the last two decades, that the A level was only offered by 51% of schools and colleges – compared to 81% and 54% offering Geography and French, respectively.

I would love to see students being encouraged (by teachers, parents and perhaps universities too) to study abroad range of the subjects they enjoy. Many students doing A level Government and Politics do go on to study Politics at university and may, for example, feel underprepared to tackle the quantitative or philosophical content of their degrees. I would also love to see more young people from all backgrounds having the opportunity to study Politics post-16 and reap the rewards of doing so. So, what do we all need to do to enable this?