The Future of English Studies in the United Kingdom
Scholarly interest in English studies, the interdisciplinary field involving the close analysis of English language and literature and its cultural, social, historical and political context, has been widely reported to be in steady decline, in the United Kingdom, since 2012. This has sparked major concerns and enduring debate surrounding the viability of the study of this and many other disciplines within the sphere of arts, humanities and social sciences higher education study in the U.K.
Despite a number of recent closures of English-related programs across the U.K, including Sheffield Hallam, Canterbury Christ Church, Oxford Brookes, Plymouth and Reading universities, evidently, this is not a trend that is widespread at international level.
Emily Dixon (2024) highlights these apparent contradictions, revealing that although provisions in Spain, Sweden, Denmark and Finland have succumbed to similar closures, Germany, Ireland and the Netherlands remain the top three providers of English-related study programs within the EEA. Provisions in France, Italy and Portugal have all observed increasing interest in these types of disciplines and have subsequently expanded their English studies provision within the past 5 years.
These changes in student interest and subsequent demand, may, of course, be due to rising costs and increasing barriers to accessing higher education study programs in the U.K. but could also be attributed in our failure to realize the value of the discipline and its relationship to our society, people and economy.
The argument surrounding the perceived lack of viable application of English studies graduate skills for meaningful employment is somewhat contestable.
Eleanor Hopkins and her co-writers outline the importance of the study of English in the development of future graduate skills and its contribution to the workplace and our economy via The British Academy paper English Studies Provision in UK Higher Education (2023), positing:
The report highlights how, alongside graduates across ‘SHAPE’ (social sciences, humanities and the arts for people and the economy) disciplines, English studies graduates will develop eight of the top 10 skills declared as essential for 2025 by the World Economic Forum.
The skills outlined in the report are directly related the study of English, including critical and creative thinking skills, the ability to approach problems in alternative ways, and the harnessing of a ‘critical voice’ not only important in education, but also in engaging with wider society and communities.
The National Foundation for Education Research (2023) are undertaking substantial investigative work funded by the Nuffield Foundation, which aims to identify the most essential employment skills that people will need in our ever-evolving work environments and demands. The project, entitled The Skills Imperative 2035 takes into account new technologies, diverse demographics and environmental changes predicting the ‘transformation’ of employment skills in the next 10-15 years, once again outlining the development of English Language, Communication and Multimedia skills for employment by 2035.
Thee essential skills include: Communicating with supervisors, peers or subordinates (rank 1), establishing and maintaining interpersonal relationships (rank 3), retrieving information (rank 4), customer service (rank 7), English Language (rank 9), oral comprehension (rank 11), oral expression (rank 12), written comprehension (rank 17), reading comprehension (rank 19), and thinking creatively (rank 20).
These skills are amongst the many employment-related and professional skills that students acquire and develop via English studies programmes.
The history of the discipline reveals much about its inherent value. The ‘treatment’ of social, cultural and political texts in their many and varying forms is central to the study of English. Hopkins et al (2023) explain “English Studies disciplines take the ‘text’, in its broadest form, as their core material. This includes prose, poetry and drama, but also extends to film and media, practice-based creative writing, and spoken language, the latter being central to English Language studies”.
Despite these findings, there are continued efforts by the media and within educational settings to downplay the importance of subject disciplines such as English language, literature and creative writing, social sciences and the liberal arts.
There are also deep concerns regarding the perceptions of English studies by young people in compulsory education and their motivation to pursue progressive study and careers relating to the discipline.
Rachel Roberts (2024) attributes this to a waning interest in the subject and a distinct lack of qualitative research relating to young people’s attitudes toward the discipline. Her small-scale study points to the way in which 16-year-olds in the U.K experience the study of English, arguing:
Further insights include the prescriptive nature of GCSE English study and the focus on information retention and recall detracted from the opportunity to engage with and explore a range of texts in both a curious and creative way.
The enthusiasm and passion of the teacher were found to be key attributes that young people within the study placed great emphasis on as was the opportunity for students to access texts that were relevant to their lives or were made relevant to their lives via lesson planning and design. A further component, seen to be an important aspect of an enjoyable learning experience is the opportunity to engage in rich discussions with both peers and tutor.
Due to the increasing marketisation of education, it is likely that teaching staff are being forced to ‘pitch’ the programmes that they are directly involved with and are being much more openly competitive in promoting their subjects than ever before. The danger here is that students (and parents) are being provided with inaccurate, biased, or misleading information in order to meet the needs, targets and outcomes of an organisation, rather than providing the correct guidance for our future global citizens and employees.
In light of these contradictory findings and in increasingly technology-laden, marketised, neo-liberal educational settings, it is now, more important than ever, that we reimagine and reinvigorate the provision and position of S.H.A.P.E.S disciplines in both compulsory and post-compulsory setting in the United Kingdom, in order that we, in turn, SHAPE our future citizenship with human progress in mind.
References
Dixon, E. (2024) Times Higher Education Supplement – Europe split on English-taught degrees amid ‘volatile landscape’.
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/europe-split-english-taught-degrees-amid-volatile-landscape
Hopkins. E, et al (2023) English Studies in UK Higher Education Provision, London: The British Academy. https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/publications/english-studies-provision-uk-higher-education/
National Foundation for Educational Research the Skills Imperative 2035. [Online] Available at: https://www.nfer.ac.uk/key-topics-expertise/education-to-employment/the-skills- imperative-2035/
Roberts, R. (2024, May 31st). Decline and fall? Students’ perspectives on A-level English at 16. Retrieved from British Educational Research Association (BERA): https://www.bera.ac.uk/blog/decline-and-fall-students-perspectives-on-a-level-english-at-16
