Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many vocational GCSEs were taken in each year since 2007.

The requested information has been provided in the table below.

Results of GCSEs in Applied[1] (vocational) subjects of pupils at the end of Key Stage 4

Source: Key Stage 4 attainment data

These changes are the result of reforms to performance tables which have removed the perverse incentives for schools to teach qualifications that were easy to achieve and/or had an inflated value in performance measures. This served only to devalue vocational education. Now, the qualifications which can count in performance tables are those that are of demonstrably high quality and promote progression.

[1] For the years 2008/09 to 2010/11 this includes entries in both single and double award applied GCSEs. All other years include entries for double award applied GCSEs only.

[2] Discounting has been applied where pupils have taken the same subject more than once and only one entry is counted in these circumstances. Further information is available from the GCSE statistical first release available at: www.gov.uk/government/statistics/revised-gcse-and-equivalent-results-in-england-2013-to-2014. The first entry policy was introduced in 2013/14; this policy could have affected the total number of entries in 2013/14.

[3] Double Award vocational GCSEs are equivalent to 1 GCSE.