SCHOOL pupils in England will be assessed using single end-of-course exams under proposals for the biggest shake-up of qualifications south of the Border in a generation.
Announcing the changes in the Commons yesterday, Education Secretary Michael Gove said GCSE exams, which are sat by 16- year-olds, would be replaced by the new English Baccalaureate Certificate (EBacc).
The qualification will scrap the retaking of modules, reduce reliance on coursework and bring back tough end-of-year exams.
The EBacc, which has already been dubbed the “Gove level”, is being introduced to tackle grade inflation, which has seen the pass rate for GCSEs increase nearly every year since they were introduced in 1988.
Mr Gove, who was educated at the private Robert Gordon’s College in Aberdeen after winning a scholarship aged 11, told MPs GCSEs had been designed “for a different age and a different world”.
The new qualification, which will not be immediately adopted in either Northern Ireland or Wales, where GCSEs are also taken, is further evidence of the growing divergence between the education systems in Scotland and England.
The GCSE-equivalents in Scotland, Standard Grades and Intermediates, will be replaced next year by the new National Qualifications. They are part of Curriculum for Excellence, the teaching framework introduced in 2010, which aims to draw closer links between subjects.
Mr Gove said: “We know that the record increases in performance at GCSE have not been matched by the same level of improvement in learning – while pass rates have soared, we have fallen down the international education league tables.
“It is time for the race to the bottom to end. It is time to tackle grade inflation and dumbing down. It is time to raise aspirations and restore rigour to our examinations.”
He said modules that encouraged “bite-size learning” and “teaching to the test” would be scrapped, while controlled assessment and the use of coursework would be removed from core subjects such as English, maths and science.
“Some will argue that more rigorous qualifications in these subjects will inevitably lead to more students failing,” Mr Gove added. “But we believe that fatalism is indicative of a dated mind-set, one that believes in fixed abilities that great teaching can do little to change.”
Teaching of the new English, maths and science certificates will begin in September 2015, with the first pupils receiving EBaccs rather than GCSEs in 2017. Other subjects, including history, geography and languages, will follow.
Children of all abilities will take the EBacc and there will be only one exam board for each subject, in order to prevent competition between boards to deliver tests that are easier to pass.
Labour’s shadow education secretary, Stephen Twigg, attacked the plans as “totally out of date, from a Tory-led government totally out of touch with modern Britain”.
Christine Blower, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, England’s largest teaching union, added: “What is being proposed here is blatantly a two-tier system. Pupils who do not gain EBacc certificates will receive a record of achievement, which will be seen to be of far less worth by employers and colleges. Before any changes are made, they need to be thoroughly tested, not rushed through to tie in with an election year.”