The humanities are often said to be in crisis. But while the
crisis narrative obscures many areas of growth and success, the
modern humanities nevertheless face real challenges relating to
enrolment, graduate employment, and funding.
The Humanities in Modern Britain: Challenges and
Opportunities (HEPI Report 141) by Dr Gabriel Roberts, which
is being published today by the Higher Education Policy
Institute, finds.
- Humanities have experienced a long-term fall in relative size
in UK universities: between 1961/62 and 2019/20, the proportion
of UK students studying humanities subjects fell from around 28%
to around 8%.
- In recent years, the humanities have also seen an absolute
fall in enrolments. The total number of humanities students at UK
universities has fallen by around 40,000 over the last decade.
- The declining popularity of the humanities extends to schools
and colleges. Since 2016, almost all humanities subjects
experienced a fall in A-Level entries larger than the decline in
the 18-year old population.
- The employment prospects of humanities graduates are less
favourable than those of graduates in some other areas but the
picture is mixed. Humanities graduates are just as likely as
graduates in other areas to be employed, and when subjects are
ordered according to the average salaries of graduates five years
after graduation, humanities subjects fall in the middle of the
range.
- Humanities graduates have many of the skills that employers
are expected to demand over the coming decade, but numerical and
digital skills are areas of weakness.
- Funding for the humanities has been mostly stable in recent
years, but there are significant current challenges related to
Brexit, COVID and the erosion of the unit of resource for
teaching by inflation, meaning the future is uncertain.
- Funding for humanities teaching varies widely in different
parts of the UK. In Scotland, for instance, the unit of resource
for Scottish students is around 40% lower than for English
students in England.
The new report argues finding solutions to these challenges means
thinking about the relationship between schools and colleges,
universities, and employers. The specific proposals include
reforming A-Levels so that pupils continue a humanities subject
and maths to the end of their schooling and embedding
professionally valuable skills more fully in humanities degrees
to boost enrolments and the employment prospects of humanities
graduates. The paper recognises the strides that have been taken
in recent years in the digital humanities and the growing
popularity of interdisciplinary degrees, both of which show how
humanities degrees can be reimagined.
Gabriel Roberts, the author of the report and an English
teacher who researched historical scholarship in the early
enlightenment as a doctoral student at the University of Oxford,
said:
‘There's an extensive literature on the humanities, but few
studies consider what's going on in schools as well as the labour
market, too few separate the humanities from the arts and the
social sciences and too few identify specific problems and
solutions. This report aims to fill in these gaps.
‘There's a strong case for broadening post-16 education in the
UK. A-Levels are strikingly narrow by international standards,
and the success of the International Baccalaureate and the
Extended Project Qualification shows pupils can handle greater
breadth than A-Levels offer.
‘The growing popularity of interdisciplinary degrees should also
tell us something about the kind of education that many young
people want. There is a strong case for change.’
, Director of the Higher Education Policy Institute
and a former History teacher, said:
‘One crucial strength of the UK is how strong we are across a
range of academic disciplines – sciences and arts, humanities and
social sciences. To maintain that strong across-the-board
performance, we must be constantly vigilant to ensure every
disciplinary area receives the necessary support.
‘It is often said there is a “crisis in the humanities” and there
are certainly some big challenges for the humanities in relation
to student numbers, funding and curricula. We must discuss,
debate and deal with them. Nonetheless, the “crisis” narrative is
too simplistic and too pessimistic. The true picture is more
nuanced, more interesting and more positive, whether we look at
teaching, course design or research.
‘Moreover, the lively current debates on issues like statues and
decolonising the curriculum prove that most people know we can
only fully understand our society when the humanities thrive.’
