Official Statistics

Annual qualifications market report: academic year 2015 to 2016

The report provides an overview of the qualifications market and provides a single reference point about participants in the market.

• From: Ofqual
• Published: 20 July 2017

Applies to England, Northern Ireland and Wales

Documents

Annual Qualifications Market Report 2015-16

Ref: Ofqual/17/6242

PDF, 1.11 MB, 48 pages

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Data - GCSE AS and A level Qualification Certificates 2015-16

MS Excel Spreadsheet, 126 KB

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Pre-release access list

MS Word Document, 12.5 KB

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Details

Main findings

1. Just under 15 million certificates were awarded in 2015 to 2016, 7% fewer than in 2014 to 2015.
2. The fall was driven largely by a fall in the number of Level 1, Level 2 and Level 1/2 qualifications awarded.
3. The number of awarding organisations recognised by Ofqual was 156 - this is 7 fewer than a year earlier.
4. The number of available qualifications increased by 3% compared to 2014/15 to just over 36,000, of which about 14,550 had an award made.
5. Twenty awarding organisations accounted for 90% of all certificates awarded during the academic year - AQA awarded nearly one-quarter (23%) of all certificates closely followed by Pearson.
6. More certificates were awarded in the science and mathematics sector subject area than any other in 2015/16 (21% of all certificates awarded).
7. For GCSE, AS and A level more certificates were awarded in the science and mathematics sector subject area (38%) than any other area in 2015/16 while for qualifications other than GCSE, AS and A level, more certificates were awarded in the preparation for life and work sector subject area (28%) than in any other area.

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Published 20 July 2017