UCAS Expresses Doubts Over A-Level Changes

UCAS - the organisation which is responsible for managing more than 2 million applications to higher education courses in the UK.  (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

UCAS, the universities admissions authority, today expressed serious reservations about the changes to the structure of A-Levels, proposed to begin this year.

UCAS, citing the results of a survey it conducted, said that schools were still undecided about which courses to offer from September, when the changes begin. In addition, it stated that some pupils may be put at a disadvantage by the changes, in particular the proposed decoupling of the A-Level from the AS.

Some universities have already expressed grave concerns about this aspect to the change. Last month we reported that Cambridge University had written to schools to ask them to continue teaching the AS, which will become optional. Amid the confusion, the changes to maths and further maths have already been delayed until 2017.

The Department for Education say that the decoupling is intended to allow students to study a subject more deeply for two years, without being distracted by exams halfway through.

Universities make offers before final grades are published. One of their objections is that, without an AS result to look at, it will be more difficult to target offers at the right candidates.

In addition, the universities will be faced with candidates presenting complex combinations of results, with the introduction of the new system being staggered over three years in the various subjects.

Many pupils benefit from the AS-Level as a staging post to the A-Level, because it provides them with a confidence boost, especially those who had not gained top results at GCSE.

UCAS warned that the confusion caused by these changes will not be over until 2020.

The chief executive of UCAS, Mary Curnock Cook, said that the picture will be complicated further by the fact that pupils from different parts of the UK will be sitting exams with the same names (A-Level, AS-Level and GCSE), but with different structures and grading procedures.

Labour has committed itself to reversing the decoupling plans, but as we reported in our previous article, any reversal would be fraught with difficulty.

Michael Gove Out

So Michael Gove is no longer our Secretary of State for Education. He presided over a time of headlong change in our education system. Some would describe him as a visionary; others, such as the teaching unions, would probably say he attempted too much too quickly, and that would be the polite version.

Nicky Morgan is the new Secretary of State
at the Department for Education.
Photo credit: Wikipedia.

As education secretary, Michael Gove was a deeply controversial figure. He brought in free schools, rewrote the National Curriculum and rapidly increased the number of academies in England, so that now around 50% of schools in England have academy status. For academies and free schools he brought in legislation allowing these institutions to employ unqualified teaching staff. He also presided over the dramatic rise in the maximum level a university can charge in tuition fees from £3000 to £9000.

His supporters would say Michael Gove took on an education system unwilling to change. He brought forward difficult but necessary changes despite fierce opposition. His critics would say that he is a deeply divisive figure, a zealot bent on his own view of what an education system should look like, stuck in the past and out of touch with the modern realities of teaching.

It is true he got himself into many arguments: he fell out with Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, with Ofsted Chief Inspector Michael Wilshaw, with his own Conservative colleague, Home Secretary Theresa May over the alleged plot by Islamic extremists to seize control of certain schools in Birmingham.

Did Prime Minister David Cameron think his personal friend Gove was a liability as the general election approaches next year? He has been replaced by Nicky Morgan and time will tell whether her tenure makes for more harmonious relationships with teaching bodies, Ofsted and other interested parties. She takes over at the Department for Education at a time of change, but will not be blamed for the series of reforms that she will have to preside over. We wish her well.

Is Gove's GCSE U-Turn Enough?

Another week, another controversy in the Department for Education.

After criticism from teaching unions, academics and fellow MPs, Michael Gove has withdrawn his plans to replace the GCSE with English Baccalaureate certificates in key subjects from 2015. The Commons Education committee had said that Mr Gove had been trying to implement "too much too soon". In his Commons speech reversing his plans, Gove did, however, say that he has asked Ofqual to ensure new GCSEs would be in place by 2015 in seven subject areas: English, maths, the sciences, history and geography. GCSEs for all remaining subjects would be reformed by the following year.

Now, the head of England's exam regulator Ofqual has warned that these changes may be too rapid. Glenys Stacey has replied to Mr Gove, saying that she will delay the education secretary's GCSE changes if there are problems with the timetable. She continued "The timetable for qualifications development that you have set out is challenging." She expressed concerns about maintaining the quality of qualifications if drafting new curricula within such a short timeframe and pointed out that she would be conducting her own consultation with the exam boards.

Other criticism has come from the head of the Mathematical Association, Peter Ransom. He pointed out that "The 2015 schedule for implementation is so ambitious that no time will be available for piloting, reflection and refinement."

Dr Kevin Stannard from the Girls' Day School Trust expressed concerns that many aspects of Michael Gove's Baccalaureate plans may still be pushed through in the GCSE reform "on the mistaken assumption that the DfE has done a U-turn."

The Department for Education maintains that it will act quickly in order to address a loss of rigour in GCSEs.

All of this comes on top of stories about bullying by Michael Gove's special advisers and controversial plans for the privatisation of academies.

Gove Allows Unqualified Teachers into the Classroom

Michael Gove outside the Palace of Westminster (Photo: Wikipedia)

In another move that has angered the teaching profession and its unions, Education Secretary Michael Gove has given the green light for academies to recruit unqualified teachers into teaching positions.

All new academies sign an agreement with the Department for Education. From now on, this agreement will state that the school has the right to recruit whoever it believes to be qualified for a teaching role, removing the condition that the recruit must have QTS (Qualified Teacher Status). Existing academies may apply to have the new clause inserted into their agreements with the Department.

Academies now account for more than a half of all secondary schools in England, although they are much less prevalent in other parts of the UK. The move brings new academies into line with private schools and the government's free schools.

The Department says it expects the vast majority of recruited teachers still to have QTS status, and that it is allowing more flexibility, by allowing schools to hire people from a broader range of backgrounds.

In contrast, the feeling among the teaching profession is that Michael Gove is trying to de-professionalise teaching. The general secretary of the NUT, Christine Blower, has described it as a cost-cutting measure and a clear dereliction of duty.

Unions point to the fact that Mr Gove has in the past praised the education system of Finland, where teachers are respected and paid accordingly. In other countries where the required level of teaching qualifications is being watered down, such as Sweden, educational standards now appear to be falling.

Teachers know how rigorous and valuable their training is. They know that pupils do not respond as well to untrained teaching and that this applies both to the academic rigour required and to classroom management.

Many teachers also suspect that this is one step of a plan for further privatisation of the education sector, eventually allowing private companies to run the academies for a profit and offering a cut-price education, to compete with neighbouring schools.

This is another move that the Education Secretary has attempted to introduce by stealth, as a part of his creeping revolution of the UK's education system. But proposals such as this, with such far-reaching consequences, will not go unnoticed by the teaching profession. There will be trouble ahead.

A-Levels are Changing

A-Levels are changing, there is no doubt about that.

Education Secretary Michael Gove began the process by consulting universities earlier this year, asking how they could become more involved in setting of the exams and the curriculum. Those consultations received a mixed reaction from teachers and teaching unions.

The Russell Group of leading universities has provided some more food for thought today. With a particular emphasis on maths A-Level, they say that some of the modules are simply not challenging enough and do not prepare students for a university degree in maths, physics or engineering.

Indeed, the Russell Group thinks that A-Level studies should be less dependent on the current modular system and more focused on a final examination. They describe A-Level modules as 'bite-sized chunks' which are too easily forgotten.

Another recommendation is that the number of times a candidate can resit any module should be limited, perhaps to one resit. Currently, a candidate can resit a module indefinitely.

Finally, the future of the AS is to be considered. The Russell Group did not express any clear views on its future, but the options are for it to be scrapped completely, given its own status as a stand-alone qualification (i.e. not a stepping stone to an A-Level) or the status quo.

All of these points will be considered by Ofqual, the exams regulator, as it begins drafting a report to be released later on this year. By then, we will know how radically different our A-Levels will look in the next few years.