PETITIONRejectedPetition · petition.parliament.uk
Make GCSE English Literature no longer mandatory.
GCSE English Literature should become an optional GCSE subject for students, it is too subjective, and students only get marked based mostly on the examiner's opinion. There is no creativity and the analysis is useless.
Last fetched 03 May 2026 · petition.parliament.uk
Signatures
10
signatures
Government response threshold (10,000) · 10/10,000
Debate threshold (100,000) · 10/100,000
Background
The GCSE English Literature subject is completely useless for those who do not want to spend years analysing texts from back in the 19th century and 17th century (e.g Macbeth) and it is especially useless since Shakespearean language is not used anymore. Making it an optional subject help students who want to increase their skills in analysis, and helps the students who are going for less wordy subjects such as STEM to avoid any unnecessary overwhelming information to both remember and apply.