14th February 2013 9:00
By Blue Tutors
Major changes to A-level examinations have been announced by Michael Gove, but head teachers have received them unenthusiastically. The education secretary believes that the current A-levels do not allow students to gain a depth of understanding in their subjects. Although AS-levels will remain, they will become a standalone exam.
However, independent school head teachers claimed the proposals were ‘rushed and incoherent’ and condemned them for their evident relationship to electoral politics. It is believed that neither employers nor universities have found A-levels to be problematic or failing to prepare students for the demands of higher education or the real world. However, one in six university students achieve degrees with first class honours, three times as many as thirteen years ago.
Union leaders are insisting that there has been no call for a reform of the current A-level system from most of the education sector. Instead, they believe that Gove is attempting to fix something that is not broken. The education minister has called for the A-level qualification to return to its former structure in which exams were taken at the end of the full two years of the course. AS-levels will no longer count towards the final A2 grade but will become a qualification in their own right. Furthermore, modules will be abandoned and replaced by a ‘linear’ form of learning with the exams at the end of the course.
Education specialists are disappointed that Gove’s alterations have ignored the views of the majority of the teaching profession, including academics, universities and employers. They believe that the AS level link should be retained rather than risk generating a double layered exam system which will serve to complicate admissions to universities and potentially narrow opportunities for pupils.