Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what progress has been achieved in increasing the take-up of the English Baccalaureate.

The Government responded to the consultation on implementing the English Baccalaureate (EBacc) in July 2017. Schools will have been able to take account of this in GCSE entries from 2020 onwards.

The proportion of pupils taking the EBacc subject combination has increased from 22% in 2010 to 38% in 2018. The Department has seen significant increases in pupils taking EBacc science, from 63% to 96%, since 2010. The Department has also seen the proportion of pupils taking history or geography increase from 48% to 78%. Whilst the proportion of pupils taking GCSE languages has increased since 2010, the Department would like to see more pupils taking the subject and have launched initiatives to support this, such as the Modern Foreign Languages hub pedagogy programme.