Asked by: Baroness Caine of Kentish Town (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what was the evidential basis for their decision to support high-cost STEM courses and cut high-cost creative courses, as set out in the letter from the Secretary of State for Education to the Office for Students on 6 July.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The department recognises the cultural and economic value of performing and creative arts courses. However, given the fiscal constraints, our approach is to prioritise funding for subjects with the highest delivery costs and where there is stronger evidence of current and future skills shortages.
Creative arts subjects already attract lower rates of funding than the science and technology subjects in price groups A and B, with Strategic Priorities Grant (SPG) funding representing only a relatively small proportion of their overall funding when fees are taken into account. For 2025/26, the SPG funding rate for performing and creative arts courses was £130.54 per student full time equivalent. This is just over 1% of the total funding for these courses including tuition fees that are supported by subsidised student loans.
Performing and creative arts courses will, like other subjects, benefit from future inflationary increases to tuition fees.
Asked by: Baroness Caine of Kentish Town (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many (1) secondary schools, and (2) Further Education colleges, offer (a) GCSEs in film and media, (b) A levels in film and media, and (c) Level 3 Qualifications in film and media, broken down by region; what percentage of the total numbers of each institution this represents; and how this is broken down by region.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The department does not hold data on the subjects offered by schools and colleges.
School and college data on the number of entries in each subject is published in the ‘Qualification and subject data’ found on the Compare school and college performance website, available on GOV.UK.
This includes schools and colleges which had entries in GCSE, A level and Level 3 film and media qualifications, their institution type and local authority.
The number of schools and colleges with entries in film and media subjects by region and institution type are provided in the tables below.
Number of schools and colleges with entries in GCSE film and media subjects:
| State-funded secondary schools | % of state-funded secondary schools | Independent schools | % of all independent schools |
East Midlands | 107 | 34.5% | 3 | 3.7% |
East of England | 157 | 38.2% | 9 | 7.8% |
London | 178 | 31.7% | 16 | 8.4% |
North East | 26 | 15.0% | 0 | 0% |
North West | 94 | 17.9% | 5 | 3.5% |
South East | 209 | 37.0% | 26 | 10.1% |
South West | 90 | 25.0% | 8 | 6.5% |
West Midlands | 93 | 21.5% | 4 | 2.9% |
Yorkshire and The Humber | 63 | 18.1% | 3 | 3.7% |
England | 1,017 | 27.6% | 74 | 6.3% |
Number of schools and colleges with entries in A level film and media subjects:
| State-funded secondary schools | % of state-funded secondary schools | Independent schools | % of all independent schools | Further Education colleges | % of all Further Education colleges |
East Midlands | 92 | 49.5% | 2 | 6.9% | 7 | 58.3% |
East of England | 151 | 63.4% | 13 | 20.3% | 9 | 45.0% |
London | 183 | 44.4% | 16 | 16.5% | 11 | 45.8% |
North East | 33 | 45.2% | 1 | 9.1% | 7 | 53.8% |
North West | 78 | 43.1% | 0 | - | 24 | 60.0% |
South East | 201 | 61.7% | 20 | 14.2% | 17 | 54.8% |
South West | 103 | 55.4% | 5 | 7.9% | 11 | 55.0% |
West Midlands | 89 | 37.2% | 3 | 6.1% | 9 | 42.9% |
Yorkshire and The Humber | 68 | 46.9% | 2 | 5.7% | 13 | 52.0% |
England | 998 | 50.3% | 62 | 11.6% | 108 | 52.4% |
Number of schools and colleges with entries in all Level 3 qualifications in film and media subjects:
| State-funded secondary schools | % of state-funded secondary schools | Independent schools | % of all independent schools | Further Education colleges | % of all Further Education colleges |
East Midlands | 110 | 59.1% | 5 | 17.2% | 7 | 58.3% |
East of England | 170 | 71.4% | 20 | 31.2% | 10 | 50.0% |
London | 224 | 54.4% | 17 | 17.5% | 11 | 45.8% |
North East | 46 | 63.0% | 4 | 36.4% | 8 | 61.5% |
North West | 109 | 60.2% | 2 | 4.4% | 26 | 65.0% |
South East | 234 | 71.8% | 33 | 23.4% | 18 | 58.1% |
South West | 118 | 63.4% | 11 | 17.5% | 11 | 55.0% |
West Midlands | 123 | 51.5% | 7 | 14.3% | 11 | 52.4% |
Yorkshire and The Humber | 88 | 60.7% | 5 | 14.3% | 13 | 52.0% |
England | 1,222 | 61.5% | 104 | 19.5% | 115 | 55.8% |
GCSE figures relate to entries in ‘Film Studies’ and ‘Media/Film/TV Studies’ GCSEs by pupils at the end of key stage 4. A level figures relate to entries in ‘Film Studies’ and ‘Media/Film/TV Studies’ A levels by students at the end of 16 to 19 study.
Level 3 qualifications include entries in ‘Film Studies’ and ‘Media/Film/TV Studies’ A levels, AS levels, and other Level 3 academic qualifications, and ‘Multimedia’ and “Film/Video/Television Production” Applied General and Tech Level qualifications by students at the end of 16 to 19 study. Each school and college are counted once only, regardless of whether they offer multiple courses.
Teaching began on the ‘Media, Broadcast and Production’ T Level pathway in September 2024. Provider level data will be published for the first time in spring 2027.
Asked by: Baroness Caine of Kentish Town (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether Media, Journalism and Publishing courses identified by Skills England as the key route to filling priority growth occupations in the creative industries in the 2026 Annual Sector Skills Assessment of the Creative Industries, published on 1 June, are now eligible to apply for the 2026–2027 Strategic Priorities Grant for HE funding, after having been made ineligible in 2005–2006.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
We recognise the cultural and economic value of media, journalism and publishing courses. However, given the fiscal constraints, our approach is to continue to prioritise funding for subjects with the highest delivery costs (and hence Strategic Priorities Grant (SPG) funding) and where there is stronger evidence of current and future skills shortages.
Media, journalism and publishing were subjects that previously attracted lower rates of funding than the science and technology subjects in price groups A & B, with SPG funding representing only a relatively small proportion of their overall funding when fees are taken into account. For 2024/25, the SPG funding rate for these courses was £130.54 per student full time equivalent. This was just over 1% of the total funding for these courses including tuition fees (that are supported by subsidised student loans).
Media, journalism and publishing courses will, like other subjects, benefit from future inflationary increases to tuition fees.