Collins sets out Conservative stall on education
The Shadow Education Secretary Tim Collins has outlined Conservative plans to overhaul the education system.
His comments come ahead of the publication on Monday of the former chief schools inspector Mike Tomlinson’s long-awaited report into the future of 14-19 education.
The major review is expected to recommend the abolition of A-Level and GCSE examinations in favour of a national diploma system.
Also among the proposals are thought to be calls for increased emphasis on vocational qualifications and less external testing for students.
Mr Collins told BBC One’s Breakfast with Frost: “There are a several things in Tomlinson that are quite sensible and one is certainly stretching the most able students better, and differentiating between them better.”
“There are a lot of things in Tomlinson we welcome – reducing coursework and a focus on literary and numeracy”, he said.
But when Michael Howard unveils tomorrow his own plans for a shakeup of the education system, he will not advocate Mr Tomlinson’s proposals for A-stars and A-double stars.
“Our proposals”, Mr Collins explained, “is that actually we should go back to the system we had until 20 years ago whereby you could only get an A-grade if you are in top 5 or 10 per cent viability in that year group.”
Put to him concerns that such a system could exclude many capable students, Mr Collins remarked: “The fact is there is only a finite number of places at the best universities or with the best employers and they need to be sure they can allocate them fairly.”
A Tory government would scrap AS Level examinations, reverting back to a two year course, whilst the question of multiple re-sits would also be addressed, he said.
Responding to calls for schools to mark pupils entirely internally, Mr Collins warned this would cause “serious problems” for universities and employers.
The Conservatives, he relayed, would instead support the retention of traditional methods whereby external assessment applies until the age of 16.
Mr Collins also vowed to look at the quality of exams in the wake of concerns about grade inflation.
But this, he stressed, should not be allowed to detract from the fact that both pupils and teachers are working harder.
Although there is a “genuine raising of standards”, equally continued Mr Collins, clarity must be installed in order to differentiate between lower and “gold standard” achievers.
He went on to outline plans to give headteachers the power to expel disruptive pupils.
“We would fund a much wider range of what are called pupil referral units and make sure they provide full time education”, Mr Collins stated.
But he added: “We have to get back to a situation where headteachers take the final decision. There have been a number of cases recently where teachers have even been punched by a pupil and yet their decision to expel them has been overridden by an appeal panel.”
As to whether excluded students would have to enroll at a new school or be sent to a specialist unit, Mr Collins said that would depend on an individual assessment
He explained: “If they improve their behaviour they can go back to mainstream schooling, if they don’t they will have to stay in the pupil referral units until they are 16.”
Mike Tomlinson’s review, published tomorrow, is expected to propose the creation of a new diploma.
The GCSE, in effect, would broadly be replaced by an intermediate level diploma where all pupils must achieve compulsory standards in functional maths, literacy and information technology.
This would see the abolition of the A-Level in favour of an advanced diploma, whilst underpinning the proposals are thought to be calls for fewer examinations with specially trained teachers grading pupils on continual assessment.
