16th October 2016 1:00
By Blue Tutors
AQA has announced that it will be cutting several of its A-level subjects: Statistics, History of Art, Classical Civilisation and Archaeology. Those taking exams in 2018 will be the last to be able to take both History of Art and Archaeology at school age, as they are not offered by any other exam board. In a statement, the exam board explained that “the complex and specialist nature of the exams” meant it was too difficult to ensure consistent results, which it felt was unfair on students; having such breadth in the syllabus and offering many options within assessments has made it very difficult to find qualified examiners and to set fair grade boundaries. They also decided their standalone statistics course was better assessed as part of the wider mathematics qualifications.
The Association of Art Historians have said that the decision will have much wider effects on the industry, reducing awareness and access to those from less privileged backgrounds “who may never have considered this an opportunity”. They argue cutting these types of subjects at A-level will perpetuate an arts community “dominated by the wealthy”. However others argue that the course was not doing anything to bridge the social divide. Of the 839 students that took the exam this year, 84% were from private schools, leading the course to have a reputation as classist, yet another “privilege of the public-school elite”. The area of study has been seen to become increasingly niche over the past decades, attracting those of privileged backgrounds who go on to work in art galleries, research or brokerages without engaging sufficiently with the general public as much as their predecessors.
We will see whether the decision does affect applications to University level study and whether it is “blow to the creative capital” of the country.