Dear Colleague. I've been doing some 'research' on A-level and undergraduate numbers in our language education (where 'our' switches between England and the UK), which has resulted in some graphs that I think are quite interesting. If you're interested, you'll find them at https://dickhudson.com/trends-in-uk-language-education/.

The raw data come from HESA (for undergraduates in linguistics) and from the websites of the four UK exam boards (AQA, Edexcel, Eduqas/WJEC and OCR). HESA seems to have changed its methods radically between 2014 and 2015; if you can help me to understand that change, I'll be very grateful. The exam boards are relatively straightforward.

The bottom line seems to be that:

• BA/MA linguistics is doing ok, but there was a worrying fall in 2018 and 2019.
• The study of foreign languages at school is less worrying than I thought if we take account of 'other foreign languages' and classical languages, both of which have been buoyant until very recently.
• The most worrying trend is the recent (since 2013) sharp fall in A-level English Language.
  

I'll be pleased to receive comments and corrections at r.hudson@ucl.ac.uk, or (of course) via this forum.

Dick