GCSEs Set To Be Replaced By Tougher Exams

The government are expected to announce plans to scrap GCSEs and return to tougher O-levels and CSEs, which were in place before 1988.

Education secretary Michael Gove made the announcement last night, adding that he thought the current system was “beyond the point of rescue”.

Changes, which will see less-able pupils take simpler CSE exams, while other pupils would face much harder O-level style tests, are set to come into effect at the start of the 2014 academic year.

In the information has come from The Daily Mail, who claim to have seen leaked documents revealing the plans. The BBC says that independent sources have confirmed that the information is broadly correct.

This morning, Labour have reacted sceptically to the news, demanding that any significant changes to the education system must be explained in detail to both teachers and pupils.

Changes are set to come in after years of criticism that GCSE exams are becoming too easy, in the wake of continually improving results year on year. Supporters meanwhile claim this is simply because teenagers are working harder than ever and are under far more pressure than they used to be.

Critics of the new government plans say that this returns to an elitist system, while John Bangs, a former head of education of the National Union of Teachers (NUT), said Gove is using the magic word “O-level” to garner public support, while ignoring the views of the wider teaching fraternity.

He added, "There has been no evidence from his regulation agency Ofqual that [the GCSE] is beyond a state of repair, there's no evidence from the teaching profession that they believe it to be beyond a state of repair, and probably even more importantly there's no evidence from parents that they believe it to be a problem or indeed employers."

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  • 10 months ago Unregistered user said:
    I am bemused by the re-emergence of the faield targets, tables and testing regime (Deliverology) and the characters associated with driving it (Michael Barber, Conor Ryan, etc). There is a great deal of evidence that the targets regime led to unintended consequences, a perfect storm that damaged education. As a systems thinker I understand that the majority of performance is in the system, rather than just down to individuals (normally 95% to the system 5% to people). Therefore setting targets for something that teachers have no control over merely engages them to cheat. What else could they do? They do not control the system and they certainly are not bad people. The old deliverology regime forced teachers to get inventive at meeting targets. Children took softer subjects. Many children were taught how to pass exams leading to the widespread refrain ‘sir, this stuff that you are teaching us. Is it in the exam?’ Inspectors who turned up to score schools against the target and inspection criteria caused further damage. Performance became a battle of perception management. Teachers were schooled in how to manage inspections and inspectors to try and get a good score. Unruly pupils were sent away for trips on the day inspectors arrived. Some teachers were so frustrated by a system that stopped them helping children they left the profession. Some teachers became ill and stressed. Some teachers committed suicide. What mattered was what was good for the targets, tables and test regime. Despite all of the evidence the devotees of targets remain unbowed, unapologetic and unreflective. When Michael Barber left the delivery unit he took his faield approach to Mckinsey Co, which became deliverology 101. The method was to travel around the world looking at exam pass rates and prosperous countries to try and find the best performing countries. Then try and find the commonalities. The thinking being if it is possible to copy and replicate these things then we will surely produce the same results. The assumption is that 5 GCSE passes are the signs of a good and sound education. The unfortunate evidence is that passing tests has been found to be a poor indicator of success in later life or of financial prosperity.

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