A-levels continue their slide towards irrelevance
Dear Jim Knight,
Today provides yet another perfect example of the horribly disjointed thinking from the government as you continue to push A-levels down a slippery slope. As the results are released today for 300,000 A-level students, the predictions are that the number of A-grades awarded will rise for the 17th year in a row and the number of passes will creep over 97% - the 28th successive rise. What a joke.
No doubt the government will praise the hard work of teachers and students, implicitly rejecting claims that the exams are getting easier (which they are) or the marking is getting softer (which it is). The inevitable question is how are universities supposed to distinguish between students when 10% of them are getting straight A-grades? Many universities have already introduced their own entry exams, seeing as A-level results are becoming redundant as a satisfactory tool for differentiation. Schools are increasingly opting to study the International Baccalaureate as they don’t feel that A-levels give students the skills and knowledge that they need. Basically, it’s a mess.
Your response to this mess is two-fold. Firstly, instead of making the exams more rigorous and pushing the bright students much harder, you are introducing the A* grade at A-level. While this may be a short term solution, the increasing pass rates will eventually nullify this initiative over time as more and more students will get A* and universities will again lose the ability to distinguish between high-achieving students. In short, it’s a complete waste of time. Secondly, you are encouraging A-level students to complete a 5,000 dissertation or short art-based project in order to test their skills in a different way. This is also b*******. You haven’t explained how a school is going to fit this project into an already overflowing timetable, even though the project is supposed to be worth half an A-level grade. You are introducing this project at the last minute in the same year that every single A-level syllabus has been rewritten, leaving teachers in dire straits. As if all that wasn’t bad enough, you seem to have forgotten that the government has just scrapped A-level coursework in almost every subject when writing these new syllabuses because – wait for it – people cheat so frequently on extended pieces of writing done outside lesson time that it became impossible to catch them.
The lack of coordination in our education system is unbelievably painful to watch. A-levels (and GCSEs for that matter) should be consigned to the educational scrap heap because they are no longer up to the task of separating the stronger students from weaker students, nor do they provide students with the necessary skills and knowledge to move onto university. In fact, some universities are already adding an extra year onto their degree courses because A-level students are simply not up to speed when they arrive. You should be ashamed of yourself for what you have done to education in this country, and the stupid new diplomas are about to make things a hell of a lot worse.
Yours sincerely,
A.Tory
Witanagemot Blogs
“No doubt the government will praise the hard work of teachers and students, implicitly rejecting claims that the exams are getting easier (which they are) or the marking is getting softer (which it is). “
Given the recently-published report about the growing number of school leavers unable to read or write, that’s going to get harder and harder for them to do…
They don’t make ‘em like they used to, eh?
I’m afraid I don’t normally agree with people who complain that standards are constantly slipping. I’m a reasonably literate and intelligent chap and I found A-Levels fairly complicated 4 years ago – and when I didn’t do enough work I got poor marks (and my Maths ‘E’ has proved troublesome now that I’m looking for work). University was, naturally, hugely more work, but A-Levels aren’t a walk in the park by any stretch of the imagination.
Besides, people were complaining about ’slipping standards’ in schools and in the literary abilities of young people back in Dickens’ time. Orwell had a pop, too. The promised destruction of our civilisation has arrived yet (as far as I am aware) so I don’t see a massive reason to believe it’s coming.
That said, I do agree that the school system seems broken and needs serious review. The fear of slipping standards should always be there to remind us to do the best for the generation who come after us.
That’s a very good point Julia. The government claims that rising A-level and GCSE pass rates show how well they’ve run our schools, yet the increasing numbers of children who literally cannot read or write (even at age 16) suggests that they have got it horribly wrong.
Stu, even a cursory glance at international league tables for literacy and numeracy will show you that something is seriously flawed in our education system. Having been a school teacher myself, I can assure you that exams are getting easier and the marking is getting softer – I used to see it year on year and it’s still happening.
Whoops. The promised destruction of our civilisation has NOT arrived yet. So much for my allusions of literacy. Muphry strikes again.
If only there was not this culture where every school child who has learned to read is almost pushed down the academic route. The lack of options means most kids (and that included me back in the day) have no real way of deciding what is best for them and what are the alternatives (which are seriously lacking in the UK).
For me this wasn’t too bad – I liked and still like academia. But sadly I would have been paid so much more had somebody mentioned plumber training!
There needs to be a regression back to apprenticeships – like internships but you actually paid enough to live on. This works for any technical/manual career and would prevent the need for so many people going onto A-levels and university.
We also need to stop this non-failure culture. To fail is to learn that you should perhaps choose to do something you’re better at or work harder. If you always scrape a pass because the markers think it might be mean to give you a fail, how are you going to know that you really shouldn’t be doing that subject!
School needs to be tougher, harder and the government needs to show that there are alternatives to the academic route (which are certainly more prosperous!)
The poor quality of vocational routes in this country remains a sad reality for many teenagers. We drag everyone through GCSE History and French when many children are not academically inclined nor will they benefit from studying these subjects. Children should be allowed to choose at age 14 what route they wish to pursue, be it academic or vocational, and the government should get children into the workplace on organised schemes wherever possible.
What I loved about the story in the Guardian was the governments attempt to suggest the half-A level “extended essay” would be useful.
FFS all we got at our school for the extended essay was a bloody prize (and it usually went to an arty-farty type except for the year I won it
) Why writing 10,000 words coherently should merit half an A-level is quite beyond me.
Stu old bean – I did my A-levels in 1980 and they were a stroll in the park even then, I have to agree with some others that the problem is we are encouraging the moderately intelligent to take exams that should be a measure of academic excellence but then reducing the standards and lowering the pass marks to ensure that parents get that warm happy feeling that their thick children are intelligent (obviously they aren’t but parents seem stupid enough to believe it).
I’m obviously not a member of the things were better in my day brigade, but I agree that far too many are going to sixth form and the numbers enrolled at “university” are ridiculous. Basic education is much better than it was 50 years ago, yes, but in any age the majority of people are not up to more than basic education and they shouldn’t be forced into moulds that don’t fit them.
I also think that skilled craftsmen deserve far more respect, and that trades should be seen as a career option for people with an academic education: it should no longer be said that one is either vocational or academic.
We have got to recognise that the days of mass unskilled work are well & truly over. Immigration & non-jobs won’t make up for a properly trained work force which can rise to the challenges of the 21st century.
Asquith touches on a very important fact – low skilled jobs are being shipped out of this country in their thousands and this trend will continue until there are virtually none left, as predicted in the Leitch Review. We have got to give people a range of academic and technical skills if this country is going to keep our economy afloat and keep unemployment down.
Lowering standards to make thick kids feel good and shove them onto a pointless course at the University of Luton is a waste of my taxes and I’m not happy about it.
Yes. We should have a two-pronged policy:
a. Abolish tuition fees because they
(i) Deter people from going to university, especially able pupils from poor backgrounds who have a hard enough time with low expectations and inferior schools as it is
(ii) Create a culture in which debt is seen as normal, when it should be something to be feared and shunned.
b. Pay for it by restricting access and closing down the most pointless courses and universities.
Bring back grants for any legitimate student… with a very narrow definition of “legitimate”. Also restrict access to 6th form as a matter of some urgency.
I’m not a member of any brigade but I can see from comparing my 1983 edition of Bostock & Chandler to my 2004 AQA textbook that you were expected to learn more, and more quickly, and to advance more rapidly to conceptually harder stuff in A Level Maths from years ago.
Plus when I was 17 it was too hard for me whereas now it isn’t.
But having said that, there is some brilliant stuff in A Level Maths, and if you want to be really stretched, there are easy ways of doing it (there are 4 modules of Further Pure) and you can go a long way in both Stats and Mechanics.
So I think A Level Maths (the only one I’m really qualified to speak on) is probably a bit easier than it used to be, but is very challenging if you want it to be – a lot of it is up to the student.
By the way the modular system is a two pronged sword: on the one hand, yes you can retake ad infinitum but this is barely practical when you need to take a minimum of 6 modules for Maths A Level alone. Multiply that by 3 or 4 and you see that VIth formers are drowning in exams now. The only way to get out of doing loads of modules is to do a minority subject like Polish.