Look what a mess they've made of it.
They're trying to stop kids from being allowed to take a lot of gcses now.
When I was a kid it was O levels, and I got thirteen, and one thing you can
say is it enables you to get very broad in your basic education before
starting to specialise, and now they are against that. I guess British kids
are gonna get dumber and dumber until they won't have the ability required
to clean a toilet.
Uncle Davey
http://education.guardian.co.uk/gcse/story/0,5500,1149812,00.html?79%3A+Uk+latest
Exams fail generation of pupils
. Schools chief says basics being ignored
. Plans for new diploma unveiled today
Rebecca Smithers, education correspondent
Tuesday February 17, 2004
The Guardian
The secondary school examination and assessment system is so flawed that
even high-achievers with strings of top-grade GCSEs are leaving school with
poor basic skills in numeracy and literacy, the man leading a government
inquiry into 14-19 education says today.
In a devastating critique of the exams the former chief inspector of schools
Mike Tomlinson singles out GCSEs in particular for failing to challenge an
entire generation because of the huge burden of assessment.
In an interview with Guardian Education he says the overwhelming evidence
from employers and universities is that English and maths GCSEs are "not
proxies" for the basic skills required for higher education and in the
workplace.
This morning he will unveil sweeping changes to secondary school exams under
which a new"diploma" framework may eventually replace GCSEs, A-levels and
other qualifications for the 14-19 age group.
Crucially, all will be required to study a "core" of English, maths and
information and communication technology, likely to be set at a higher
standard than today's GCSE. Mr Tomlinson hopes it will go a considerable way
towards meeting the widespread concern about poor skills.
Mr Tomlinson, appointed by the government to head an inquiry into the 14-19
phase of education after the A-level fiasco of 2002, says it is the
government's biggest educational challenge.
"If accepted, it will have a huge impact on our education system. That
weighs heavy because it must be right. It has to be implemented in a
planned, systematic way," he says.
The working group will set out proposals for a diploma framework that will
provide a "ladder of progression" into which exam units or components, and
the recognition of other skills and activities, will be slotted.
Achievement in each will be recorded on an official "transcript" which will
be available to universities and employers.
Further work has still to be done on such key issues as how individual
subjects should be graded within the overall diploma, in close consultation
with universities.
Mr Tomlinson hopes the new system will stop schools putting students in to
take large numbers of GCSE.
"What we can't stop ... is the school that wants to do 10, 12, 13 GCSEs -
you would not need those to get the intermediate diploma even at the highest
level."
Students needed to be set greater challenges in the exam system. "We talk
about challenge at A-level but for many young people there isn't much of a
challenge presented by GCSE."
There was a huge problem of poor skills in young people, not only at the
lower end of the ability range but also in pupils achieving high grades.
The assumption had always been that poor literacy and numeracy were
associated with poor achievement.
"What we have found is that this is not the case. It isn't that young people
at university are not able to do this - it's not been an integral part of
their programme and it's not been encouraged and supported by the way in
which they are assessed.
"It's not their fault, nor is it the fault of their teachers."
Even pupils with GCSE and A-level maths were having to take remedial classes
once they arrived at university.
Mr Tomlinson says he is "quite convinced" that GCSEs in maths and English
language should not be seen as substitutes for basic numeracy and literacy.
"As the syllabus has developed and the assessment methods have developed,
it's very difficult to say with assurance that someone getting a particular
grade in those subjects has those basic skills at the level required."
An important element in Mr Tomlinson's report is that students will be
offered the choice of taking a "specialised" diploma focusing on arts or
sciences or a more general "open"one.
Those choosing the science diploma would be required to take an appropriate
maths course as well as basic maths.
The idea is that the 14-19 phase will be organised around diplomas at the
first four levels of a new national qualifications framework: entry,
foundation, intermediate and advanced. All diplomas would have the basic
structure of core, main learning and common skills developed across the
curriculum.
At the higher level, pupils would have to undertake an extended project or
personal challenge appropriate to the level of the diploma.
This would help them acquire the research, planning, analytical and
presentational skills sought by employers and higher education, and would
effectively replace discredited coursework, in which there is currently much
scope for plagiarism.
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