Ed Balls: ‘Dumbing down’ argument is nonsense

Shadow education secretary and Labour leadership candidate Ed Balls comments on the GCSE results and the coalition’s education policy:

“The first group of young people to have been entirely educated under Labour pick up their GCSE results today. No doubt this will provoke some commentators into even greater efforts to do down their achievements – claiming more young people succeeding must mean exams are getting easier.

“In the early years of David Cameron’s leadership, the Tories didn’t join in this annual ‘dumbing down’ chorus. But over the past year, they’ve changed tack with a concerted campaign to criticise the state education system and rubbish the achievements of young people.

“Of course, making the case for cutting investment in our schools, even in the middle of a recession, is easier for the Tories if they also deny the huge improvements of the last decade. But it also reflects something more worrying – the emergence of Michael Gove’s increasingly narrow and deeply conservative view of education policy.”