Provisional Entries for Summer 2022: GCSEs, AS, A levels and Skills Challenge Certificate for Wales
An annual report which presents provisional data on Entries for Summer 2022 GCSEs, AS, A levels and Skills Challenge Certificate for Wales.
Key Points
Summer 2022 is the first summer series in which learners will sit GCSE, AS and A level exams since 2019. In 2020 and 2021, grades were determined by centres. Entry figures in this release will have been affected by these different approaches to awarding grades, as well as by other disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
GCSEs
- 318,590 GCSE entries were made for summer 2022. This is down by 5.1% compared to GCSE entries for summer 2021.
- When compared to 2019, the last summer that learners sat exams, the number of entries in 2022 has increased by 4.2%.
- Year 11 learners are the most likely to enter for GCSEs in the summer, accounting for 86.9% of total GCSE entries this summer. The number of Year 11 entries decreased by 5.7% this summer compared to summer 2021.
- There were 29,230 entries from Year 10 learners in summer 2022. This is an increase of 5.3% compared to last summer, when there were 27,750.
- Year 12 or above entries decreased this summer, making up 3.8% of total GCSE entries.
AS level
- There were 39,970 AS level entries in summer 2022 in Wales, 8.5% fewer than in summer 2021 and 4.0% fewer than in 2019, the last summer that exams were sat.
- There were 37,150 entries from Year 12 learners, accounting for 92.9% of all entries. This is almost the same as the proportion in 2021, but a much larger share than in 2019 when 76.5% of entries were from Year 12 learners.
- Entries from Year 13 learners have continued to decrease, dropping by 10.1% in between summer 2022 and summer 2021 and by 76.1% between summer 2022 and summer 2019.
A level
- There were 36,310 A level entries for summer 2022, 0.5% more than in summer 2021.
- This is the second row in a year where entries have increased, following several years of annual decreases
- The majority of the increase was a result of entries from Year 13 learners, which increased by 4.4% compared to last summer, accounting for 92.2% of all A level entries this summer.
- Year 14 and above entries have dropped by 32.8% between summer 2022 and summer 2021.
There are a number of factors that can influence why entries for year groups might change over time, for example changes to:
- Population size;
- Entry behavior e.g. when learners are entered for their GCSEs;
- The number of qualifications of each type being taken on average;
- The types of qualifications being taken in post-16.
As this release is based on counts of entries at qualification level it is not possible for us to quantify the impact of such factors. We have commented on factors influencing changes in entries only where we are confident that these factors are likely to be associated with a change.
Note, the full release and corresponding data tables are available in the download box.
Contact
Statistician
Tel: 01633 373 250
Email: statistics@qualificationswales.org
Press
Tel: 01633 373 216
Email: media@qualificationswales.org