Drama A Level entries decrease further amid calls for urgent reforms

A Level results published by the Joint Council for Qualifications show that drama entries in the UK for 2023 have fallen by 7.6% since the previous year, with entries in England falling by 6.5% in the same period. 

This is in line with a steady decline in A Level Drama uptake: entries in England have dropped by 45% between 2010 and 2023, from 15,144 students to 8,340. 

This decrease in entrants is despite the uptick seen last year, where the number of UK Drama A Level students increased by 3% from 9645 in 2021 to 9,953 in 2022. This anomaly has anecdotally been put down to the impact of returning to in-person education post-Covid. 

A call for change 

Many across the sector are calling for change from the government in regards to the current treatment of arts in schools, such as the ‘Foundations for the Future’ report from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and A New Direction. This report asks for schools to embrace the arts and policy makers to reconsider the status of arts in schools. 

National Drama, commenting on the provisional figures that outlined a decline in arts qualifications entries in England, says that this is an ‘inevitable consequence of ill-informed government policies’. The statement cites errors such as the government limiting students to the Ebacc basket and holding an inaccurate view that the arts develop skills that are not economically valuable. 

Vice chair of National drama, Zeena Rasheed, says: Making sure our curriculums really are balanced will raise standards and give more children richer educational, personal, and cultural opportunities, which research shows drives motivation, achievement, progress, enjoyment, and real excellence, rather than photo-shoots, tick boxes, or league tables and data’.

‘The real tragedy, however, is that more and more children and young people are being denied their right to Drama and Theatre education,' she adds.