Too much of what is valuable about studying English was lost in the educational reforms of the past 14 years. A sharp drop-off in the number of students in England taking the subject at A-level means fewer are taking English degrees. Teaching used to be a popular career choice for literature graduates, as Carol Atherton warmly describes in her new book, Reading Lessons. In it, Ms Atherton, a teacher in Lincolnshire, explains the pleasure she takes in teaching novels such as Jane Eyre that she first encountered herself as a teenage bookworm.
But lower numbers of English graduates mean teacher training courses are struggling to fill places for specialist secondary teaching jobs like hers, making entry less competitive. While trainee English teachers used to be plentiful, compared with subjects such as physics, now recruitment targets are routinely missed.
