Education Secretary Michael Gove: "Today marks the next stage in radical exam reform"
The GCSE exam in England is going to be replaced by a qualification called the English Baccalaureate Certificate.
A shake-up of the exam system, unveiled by Education Secretary Michael Gove, will mean a single end-of-course exam and one exam board for core subjects.
Pupils beginning secondary school this year will take the first new exams - in English, maths and sciences - in 2017.
Mr Gove told MPs that GCSEs had been designed "for a different age and a different world".
The education secretary said the changes would modernise the exam system "so we can have truly rigorous exams, competitive with the best in the world, and making opportunity more equal for every child".
Labour's shadow education secretary, Stephen Twigg, attacked the plans as "totally out of date, from a Tory-led government totally out of touch with modern Britain".
He also criticised the repeated leaking of the plans to scrap GCSEs which he said meant that such changes avoided proper parliamentary scrutiny.
Mr Twigg accused the education secretary of trying to introduce changes for future exams while he was still grappling with the "fiasco" of this year's GCSE results.
Single exam boardThe changes, now being put out to consultation, will be introduced from 2015 - with the first candidates taking the new-look exams in 2017.
This will initially be in three core subject areas - English, maths and sciences.
Parents could be forgiven for thinking that reforms in the exam system have become their own kind of never-ending continuous assessment.
And anyone with a child in secondary school will be wary of upheaval and uncertainty about the value of taking GCSE exams which are headed for the scrap heap.
But there are some important changes set to be introduced.
The shift to a single end-of-course exam will end the baffling jigsaw of different units and pick 'n' mix results.
Changing to a single exam board should bring greater clarity to what is being taught and to what standard.
Allowing the exam to be taken at different age points is another interesting innovation, as the leaving age is raised to 18.
It will also mark a further fragmentation within the UK - with devolution taking the exam systems in increasingly different directions.
Another significant shift is the recognition that standards need to be measured against international standards. Like the economy, competition in education is now global.
This will be extended later to history, geography and languages - with the suggestion that Ofqual should look at how this template might be used for a wider range of subjects.
This would mean that GCSEs will continue for some subjects alongside the new English Bacs over a number of years.
There will be one exam board for these English Bac subjects rather than having different exam boards competing with their own versions.
This follows concerns that such competition leads to a "race to the bottom", with an incentive for exam boards to attract more business by making it easier to pass.
These subjects are those included in the existing "English Baccalaureate" - a performance measure of schools already introduced by the government.
But despite an earlier leak claiming that there would be a two-tier system - similar to the old O-levels and CSEs - the new qualification will be a single exam for a wide range of abilities.
Leaving ageTo allow weaker pupils to catch up, the exam can be taken at different points between 16 and 18 years of age.
The changes to the GCSE exam will come alongside the raising of the leaving age - which will see young people staying in education and training until the age of 18.
The Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said the changes would "raise standards for all our children", but he added that it would "not exclude any children".
The changes in England's examinations will mark an even greater divide between education systems within the UK - with Wales and Northern Ireland so far set to continue with GCSEs.
The Welsh government says it will not be rushed into following any changes to the GCSE and is carrying out its own separate review into the exam system.
Changes to the GCSE in England would not apply to Northern Ireland.
In Scotland, pupils take Standard Grades, Highers and Advanced Highers rather than GCSEs and A-levels.
Back to the future?Brian Lightman, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said GCSEs needed to be reviewed but bringing back an O-level style exam was not the answer.
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg says the plans will "raise standards for all our children"
"I hope that these proposals are not going to be telling us that we're going to have a system that goes back to something that we used to have in the 1950s, which was suited to a very small part of the population," he said.
But Anthony Seldon, head teacher of Wellington College, applauded the changes: "It is extraordinary that clapped-out GCSEs have been allowed to continue for so long, when their deficiencies have been known to all for 10 or more years.
"What is imperative is that the English Baccalaureate should be a test of the ability of pupils rather than of their teachers, assessing independence of thought and response rather than be a regurgitation of prepared answers, and that it should develop scholarship and curiosity."
The National Union of Teachers warned of an "inherent contradiction" in the government's criticism of GCSEs - saying that it was "nonsensical" to expect higher pass rates from schools while at the same time saying that any such improvement was evidence of exams becoming easier.
Martin Johnson of the ATL teachers' union warned against a "short-term political fix by ignorant ministers".
"Tinkering with exams is a cheap and relatively easy lever for governments, which has been used and over-used in the past couple of decades. What would make a real, long-term difference to raising standards for all children would be improving the teaching and learning in all schools - but that's long, and hard, and expensive," said Kevin Stannard of the Girls' Day School Trust.
17 Sep, 2012
-
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-19626663#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa
--
Manage subscription | Powered by rssforward.com
Anda sedang membaca artikel tentang
GCSEs scrapped for 'English Bac'
Dengan url
http://sportofracingoptions.blogspot.com/2012/09/gcses-scrapped-for-english-bac.html
Anda boleh menyebar luaskannya atau mengcopy paste-nya
GCSEs scrapped for 'English Bac'
namun jangan lupa untuk meletakkan link
GCSEs scrapped for 'English Bac'
sebagai sumbernya
0 komentar:
Posting Komentar