Pupils shun soft A-levels for tougher courses in a bid for top universities

House 'filled with cat urine and rotten food' is discovered after cop found boy, 7, on the street trying to sell his TEDDY for a meal - and his mom insists she's done nothing wrong in angry rant at police
New terror in Europe: Seven injured - including a six-year-old child - by knife-wielding maniac on a Swiss train who then set the carriage on fire
Seven-month-old baby killed in hot car at Texas Walmart after father forgot to drop him off at daycare
Anthony Weiner talks about stripping and calls himself a 'mongoose' in flirty exchange with a man who 'catfished' him pretending to be a female student
R2-D2 is dead: 3ft 8in actor Kenny Baker, 83, who portrayed the bleeping Star Wars droid has passed away
'The worst lawyer in the US': Texas defense attorney, who has lost ALL his death penalty cases, calls it quits after four decades and dozens of trials
Fox News host says Hillary Clinton had a SEIZURE on camera in latest claim about her 'secret' health issues - but reporter in the clip says head twitch was 'innocuous'
Meghan McCain slams 'garbage election', announcing she refuses to vote for either Trump or Clinton
'The only way we can lose... is if cheating goes on': Now Trump claims only electoral fraud can stop him winning Pennsylvania and urges supporters to watch polling stations
Now Trump says he was 'not THAT sarcastic' with his claim that Obama 'founded' ISIS - just hours after he blamed CNN for misreading his humor
The Democrats are hacked AGAIN: Private phone number of EVERY House Democrat is posted online by 'Russian' hacker after leak of DNC emails and cyber attack on Hillary
Republicans' chances of keeping the Senate are 'dicey' warns Mitch McConnell as he says GOP is 'on defense' in November
Is Trump a Russian agent? Top Kremlinologist presents a tantalising and disturbing dossier on why the presidential hopeful could have closer links to the Kremlin than it may appear
'I am being forced to give up my absolute love': Florida teacher's open letter about why she's quitting her job after ten years goes viral
Princess Diana insisted on taking her 'secret mascot' sex toy with her on all foreign visits as a good luck charm
A sex button in the bedroom, risqué portraits for her lover, and a codename for making love: Queen Victoria's VERY raunchy side revealed
'I gave up': New York boy, 13, who took his own life after being mercilessly bullied by his Catholic school classmates, wrote a heartbreaking final note blaming teachers for 'doing nothing'
Johnny Depp's court battle gets even uglier as video emerges of actor 'throwing glass and bottle' at Amber Heard
Teenage water polo player dead and five critically injured after their van is hit by truck on way to tournament
Bada bing! Philadelphia 'mafia king' Skinny Joey Merlino is freed on $5m bail, ordered to wear an ankle bracelet and confined to his own mansion and Italian restaurant
Man DEFENDS his 'black widow' wife after she is convicted in the death of her second husband and is suspected to have killed her first and third husbands too
Making a Murderer's Brendan Dassey has his conviction overturned by a federal judge
How Singapore's 21-year-old Joseph Schooling beat his IDOL Michael Phelps: Gold medalist trained in Florida and Texas and was inspired by 2008 meeting with the American champion when he was just 13
He is human after all! Michael Phelps LOSES his final individual Olympic race to Singapore's Joseph Schooling, having to settle for a three-way tie for silver

Dramatic drop in pupils taking subjects such as TV, film and leisure
Thousands are switching to the sciences, maths and core humanities
It comes as teenagers prepare to pick up their A-levels next Thursday
About one in four expected to achieve A or A* grades in exams

By Eleanor Harding, Education Correspondent For The Daily Mail

Published: 19:32 EST, 12 August 2016 | Updated: 03:21 EST, 13 August 2016

498

View
comments

Teenagers who are about to collect their A-level and GCSE results have shunned ‘Mickey Mouse’ subjects in favour of tough courses preferred by elite universities.

Official statistics show a dramatic drop in pupils taking subjects such as TV, film and leisure and tourism, with thousands switching to the sciences, maths and core humanities.

It comes as teenagers prepare to pick up their A-levels next Thursday, with about one in four expected to achieve A or A* grades.

Teenagers who are about to collect their A-level and GCSE results have shunned ‘Mickey Mouse’ subjects in favour of tough courses preferred by elite universities (file photo)

Entries for A-level general studies – which will be dropped entirely in 2019 – have fallen by 35 per cent to 11,900 since last year, and by 63 per cent since 2013.

Entries have also declined since last year for A-levels in performing arts, which fell by 15 per cent to 2,800, physical education, down by 6 per cent to 10,400, and leisure, down by 15 per cent to under 300.

Meanwhile, entries in maths rose by 1 per cent to 86,000 and further maths rose by 2 per cent to 14,800.

At GCSE, drama entries dropped by 4 per cent to 68,300, while hospitality fell by 12 per cent to 3,300.

But entries for chemistry rose by 6 per cent to 131,660, in physics they rose by 5 per cent to 130,620, and in history they rose by 7 per cent to 243,520.

The shift is thought to have been driven by the Government encouraging pupils to take tougher subjects favoured by the top universities of the Russell Group.

In 2010, the English Baccalaureate was introduced – a combination of academic GCSEs including English, maths, history, geography, the sciences and a language. The Government uses schools’ EBacc results as a performance measure, and by 2020 all pupils will have to take the course.

The system was pioneered by former education secretary Michael Gove, who wanted to make qualifications more rigorous.

It comes as teenagers prepare to pick up their A-levels next Thursday, with about one in four expected to achieve A or A* grades (file photo)

Alan Smithers, of the University of Buckingham, said: ‘The Government has been signalling that it’s the core academic subjects that really count, and that performing arts and so on are just entertainment.

‘Then there are the signals from universities, that they regard some A-levels as real and some as wanting.’

Employers and universities have long complained that youngsters are not taking the right subjects to prepare them for the modern economy.

However, critics say the EBacc is squeezing out other enriching subjects such as art and music.

Creative Industries Federation chairman John Kampfner said: ‘There are many people who are not academic in a traditional sense and who would struggle with the EBacc yet are thriving and excelling today in careers from fashion to video games.’