OPINION - Britain faces a literacy crisis that could make us fatter, less employable and depressed
Reading can be for solitary pleasure or it can be a quotidian task. Some people avoid books in favour of other forms of recreation; others read everywhere from bathrooms to Tube carriages. Some people love reading so much they even study English till the very end of school.
In fact a decade ago English was the most popular subject at . It was also one of the most popular university degrees. This year it was the 12th most course, lagging behind other subjects like maths and geography, physics and history. And the number of who took English at university has fallen by a third in the past decade. The status of English is in steep decline in the British education system; schoolchildren and university undergraduates are falling out of love with it.
