HSC 2013 – The numbers

This page last updated 1 September 2013.

75 168 students are enrolled in at least one Higher School Certificate course.
442 candidates are enrolled in HSC courses outside of NSW, including in international schools in Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea and Singapore.
HSC written exams will be held over 18 days between Monday 14 October and Wednesday 6 November. There are 117 different exam papers. The first exams are English Standard and Advanced and English (ESL), and the last are Classical Hebrew Extension, Geography, Heritage Korean and Visual Arts.
There are more than 760 HSC exam centres in NSW.
Of the 75 168 students enrolled in this year’s HSC, 36 714 or 49% are male and 38 454 or 51% are female.
The majority of HSC candidates in NSW come from the Sydney metropolitan area: 44 170 against 30 551 in the Board's non-metropolitan regions.
Enrolments by Board of Studies regions
English: 69 277 students are enrolled in at least one HSC English course.
These courses include: English Standard, English Advanced, English as a Second Language, English Extension 1, English Extension 2, English Life Skills and English Studies.
English is the only compulsory HSC subject.
Maths: 54 584 students are enrolled in at least one Board Developed course from the Mathematics Key Learning Area.
Languages: 6071 students are enrolled in at least one HSC language course.
Life Skills: 1794 students are enrolled in at least one HSC Life Skills course.
Science: 33 172 students are enrolled in at least one HSC science course.
These courses include: Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Earth and Environmental Science, Senior Science and Science Life Skills.
VET: 23 946 students are enrolled in at least one HSC Vocational Educational and Training or VET course. Of these, 21 535 are enrolled in one or more of the VET curriculum frameworks.

Note: The numbers above may differ from total course enrolment numbers as a student, for example, can be enrolled in more than one course from a particular subject area.

15 subjects with the largest number of students enrolled
1.	English	69 277
2.	Mathematics	54 584
3.	Biology	17 058
4.	Business Studies	16 020
5.	PDHPE*	14 949
6.	Studies of Religion	14 641
7.	Ancient History	11 936
8.	Chemistry	11 189
9.	Modern History	10 597
10.	Legal Studies	10 023
11.	Physics	9672
12.	Visual Arts	9615
13.	Hospitality	8363
14.	Community and Family Studies	7260
15.	Senior Science	6061

*Personal Development, Health and Physical Education

Note: These subjects include Life Skills enrolments where appropriate.

Enrolment by course

10 individual language courses with the largest number of students enrolled
1.	French Continuers	826
2.	Chinese Background Speakers	689
3.	Japanese Continuers	683
4.	French Beginners	663
5.	Japanese Beginners	633
6.	Italian Beginners	345
7.	Italian Continuers	283
8.	German Continuers	266
9.	Japanese Extension	208
10.	Arabic Continuers	199

Language course eligibility

Five languages with the largest number of students enrolled
1.	French	1495
2.	Japanese	1364
3.	Chinese	902
4.	Italian	634
5.	German	372

Enrolment by language course

Five VET curriculum frameworks with the largest number of students enrolled
1.	Hospitality	8363
2.	Construction	3613
3.	Business Services	2676
4.	Retail Services	2127
5.	Metal and Engineering	1776

HSC Vocational Education and Training (VET) courses are delivered for the HSC by Registered Training Organisations (RTOs) including schools and colleges as part of a school system RTO, TAFE NSW Institutes and private providers.

Enrolment by VET curriculum frameworks

Note: These statistics are based on a Board of Studies NSW audit, 1 September 2013.