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English literature GCSE

Arran Cameron
What does the IET and the engineering community think of the English literature GCSE? Is it relevant or beneficial for engineering or is it (like food tech) something that hardly anybody cares about?


English literature is a near compulsory GCSE in England but is now optional in Wales where it has experienced quite a heavy decline in the number of secondary school students taking it.
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  • 0
    My mother took just 8 O Levels and so did most other students of her generation. English literature was compulsory at her school (along with English language, mathematics, and one science) but given the choice she would not have taken it although she was happy with her other subjects. In more recent times it has become the norm to take 11 or 12 subjects at GCSE. There is some evidence of a law of diminishing returns when it comes to the number of GCSEs taken, so that the advantages of 12 GCSEs over 8 is marginal and far less than the advantage of 8 GCSEs over 4.


    There are times when I think that there should be a technical and factual English GCSE that goes into greater depth than what is covered in the existing English language GCSE. Whether Britain has the teachers who can teach such a GCSE is a different matter.
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  • 0
    My mother took just 8 O Levels and so did most other students of her generation. English literature was compulsory at her school (along with English language, mathematics, and one science) but given the choice she would not have taken it although she was happy with her other subjects. In more recent times it has become the norm to take 11 or 12 subjects at GCSE. There is some evidence of a law of diminishing returns when it comes to the number of GCSEs taken, so that the advantages of 12 GCSEs over 8 is marginal and far less than the advantage of 8 GCSEs over 4.


    There are times when I think that there should be a technical and factual English GCSE that goes into greater depth than what is covered in the existing English language GCSE. Whether Britain has the teachers who can teach such a GCSE is a different matter.
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