Market share for A Level Economics Specs

I’m not sure whether we’ve provided this info before, but some colleagues might find it interesting. Each year we update our database of schools and colleges offering A Level Economics, tracking centres by specification board amongst other variables. The latest split (based on our sample of around 1,550 UK schools/colleges) is as follows:

We track movement of centres between boards - always interesting to see who is changing to what (and to ask why!). There is always a background level of specification change (or “churn”) but things quieten down after a few years of new specs. Overall, our data suggests a net migration away from OCR towards AQA and Edexcel (a trend which is much more pronounced in A Level Business Studies where OCR appears to be hemorrhaging student numbers and centres). There have also been some high profile centres switching from AQA to Edexcel, with the debacle of the 2010 exam scripts proving to be the final straw for most!

We’ve logged many centres who have started to offer A Level Economics for the first time in 2010 and 2011 - a very encouraging sign and consistent with the significant growth in entries for AS & A2 Economics over recent years. AQA and Edexcel are very much the most popular specs for new Econ centres. Food for thought…