Data from the Department of Education showed undergraduate enrolments in history were equivalent to 5400 full-time students in 2021,plummeting from 8400 a decade before. For literature,the numbers fell from about 4700 to 3290 in the same period. In both subjects,2021 enrolments were at a 20-year low.
Some humanities subjects were up,including Indigenous studies (an increase of 60 per cent in 10 years) and philosophy (up by 20 per cent). Gender-specific studies had risen slightly. Archaeology,anthropology and sociology are sliding.
The University of Sydney’s Matthew Sussman,who teaches literary criticism,said English majors were still a drawcard for students considering arts degrees. This year,350 students were enrolled in his first-year unit on literary classics.
“It’s the gateway unit for the English major,” he said,listingThe Odyssey,To the Lighthouseand The Canterbury Talesas some of the texts first-year students have studied this year. “Middlemarch is always a winner.”
Sussman said creative writing courses were booming,but he was not convinced that was luring students away from traditional subjects. “Studying literature – the classics – helps teach critical thinking,and it’s the best tool we have to help us see the world through someone else’s eyes.
“That sad story that the humanities is declining really doesn’t resonate with what I hear from students on the ground. I think post-pandemic,and with the rise of AI,we will see more people interested in the humanities degrees than before.”
‘[Literary classics] is the gateway unit for the English major ... Middlemarch is always a winner.’
Matthew Sussman,University of Sydney
Andrew Norton,a higher education academic at the Australian National University,believes a number of theories could explain the humanities drop-off.
“It’s possible that some people with humanities interests decided to take law or communications courses,” Norton said. “The fall also coincides with the spread of smartphones that are competing for our scarce time,and making it harder to read novels or detailed histories.”
At the University of Wollongong,48 students completed an English major in 2021 compared with 61 five years ago,the institution’s head of humanities,Ika Willis,said.
“The prestige medium of storytelling was the novel,and that has shifted to screen studies as the media landscape has changed. But I think we may be reaching a tipping point because we need literature students more now than we have for a while.
“The prospects are good for graduates,especially because English graduates are in a better position to understand what is at stake in the battle between human and AI generated-text.”
Abeni Termytelen,an arts student at Sydney University who is majoring in literature,plans to become an English professor.
She said it was her HSC English teachers at Colo High School,where she finished in 2018,who helped her peel back the “stereotype of literature being an impractical option”.
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“My family was really supportive of me pursuing English literature as a passion. That was behind my decision to pursue a long career path in it,” she said.
Termytelen,who is also a high school English tutor,said literary studies was “an exciting way of teaching critical thinking ... and engaging with history,both the positives and negatives of our past.
“And I wonder without these skills we are becoming a less empathic country.”
A Department of Education spokesperson said the reasons fewer people were choosing to study humanities were varied,but trends were mostly driven by changing student demand for courses.
“Greater availability of information about career progression and graduate employment outcomes for different study fields has allowed students to make informed course decisions and choose courses with better career and earning prospects,” the spokesperson said.
Labor’s universities accord review,which has a broad remit,will examine the impact of the Job Ready Graduate reforms. A final report due is due in December.
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