A Level Economics continues to grow

The A Level results for summer 2011 are out and with them come a deluge of statistics from the JCQ about candidate enties and grades in all subjects.

One trend we’ve been following in recent years has been the sustained and significant growth in A Level Economics candidate entries. Some colleagues will recall the steady decline in Economics during the 1990s and early part of the 2000’s. How heartening to report on yet another impressive growth in A Level Economics entries for 2011.

The growth in candidate numbers has to be seen in the context of a substantial increase in AS candidates in summer 2011 - up from 1.2 million in 2010 to 1.4 million in 2011. That was a 17.9% rise which has allowed supporters of other subjects to point to increasing student popularity too!

AS Economics entries outperformed the overall growth in AS entries, however. In summer 2011 there were 35,184 AS Econ candidates, a rise of 5,986 or 21.5%.

A2 Economics candidate numbers also continued to grow, rising from 22,875 in 2010 to 23,843 in 2011.

Taking a five year view, the re-emergence of A Level Economics is particularly encouraging. In summer 2006 there were 38,208 AS and A2 candidates. By summer 2011 the total had risen to 59,027, a stunning 55% increase.

The circumstantial evidence we’ve gathered from schools and colleges is that A Level Economics continues to grow in 2011/12 too. Many more schools have started to offer the subject from September 2011 and we saw a 92% increase in students attending our AS & A2 Economics revision workshops in November & December 2011 compared with the same series in 2010.

Clearly Economics is a subject that has rediscovered its mojo!

Data source: JCQ. Candidate numbers are for Summer exam sittings; all Awarding Bodies.