Gold standard to stay
The Government has no plans to abolish GCSEs and A-levels, the Prime Minister said last night.
Tony Blair’s comments came after former chief schools inspector, Mike Tomlinson, published his 18-month inquiry into the shape of secondary school education.
Mr Blair said Mr Tomlinson’s proposals would help improve the existing system, not overturn it.
Speaking to businessmen in Birmingham, Mr Blair lauded Mr Tomlinson’s work as an “important step forward,” but stated the “gold standard” A-level exam was “here to stay.”
“As Mike Tomlinson has said, and Charles Clarke re-iterated, GCSEs and A-levels will stay. So will externally-marked exams. Reform will strengthen the existing system where it is inadequate,” said the leader who came to power on the slogan “education, education, education.”
Mr Blair said the reforms would combine greater challenges for the brightest pupils with a clearer focus on transferable skills such as literacy, numeracy and information and communication technology for those on vocational courses.
“You as employers need employees with basic skills in literacy, numeracy and information technology – skills which are too often lacking in new and older employees,” he told the CBI.
Mr Tomlinson had recommended a four-stage diploma – from entry, foundation, intermediate to advanced – covering the widest compass of exam candidates as possible.
“This would be the first time that a qualification gives employers the guarantee that students have these skills,” said Mr Tomlinson.
He told the BBC last night the A-level would be strengthened and deepened covering 100 per cent of young people, not just the 30 per cent of the “total cohort” that currently receive A-level instruction.
“We cannot simply reject the other 70 per cent and say that it does not matter what happens to them.”
But the new diploma would not entail the abolition of external examinations or the abolition of GCSE, AS and A-levels as courses and subjects, said Mr Tomlinson.
“The way ahead is through evolution rather than revolution. Our recommendations build upon the best of the current system to strengthen and deepen existing qualifications.”
Charles Clarke, Education Secretary, said Mr Tomlinson’s plans signified the “biggest single reform of qualifications in any of our lifetimes.”
Michael Howard, the Conservatives’ leader, unveiling his party’s own action plan on education, pledged to restore faith in the exam system, keeping A-levels as a gold standard.
The Conservatives’ proposals would see a fixed proportion of A-level candidates attaining A grades, in an approach last seen in the 1980s, a position at odds with Mr Tomlinson’s plans to give students A* and A** grades at A-level to aid universities with admissions.
A Government White Paper is due to be published in spring.
