1 September 2009

In many ways GCSEs this year were almost as much a test for the government as they were for the Class of 2009.

For as the first generation to have gone through their school years entirely under Labour administrations lined up to collect their results, Newsnight was revealing the results of its poll on Labour’s education reforms. The results were not as good as those for GCSE. 67% of respondents thought Labour hadn’t delivered on its promises and almost a similar figure felt that Labour had not used its significant investment in education very wisely. With 35% saying they would rather back education policies from the Conservatives as against 25% for Labour, it was perhaps further evidence of the scale of the difficulties the government now faces. Despite improvements in results again this year including an increase in the overall A*-C pass rate up to 67.1%, boys doing better in maths, entries rising in single sciences and a drop in the number of National Challenge schools where less than 30% get five good GCSEs, big questions still surround exam performance in general, GCSEs in particular and Labour policy overall.

A number of issues that cropped up around GCSEs this year have been around for a long time. Three in particular faced Labour when they came in in 1997. Twelve years on they provide interesting case studies by which to measure progress.

First, the whole issue of the role of GCSEs, an issue inherited by Labour in the shape of the 1996 Dearing Review. Questions about whether GCSEs still have credibility and even whether we still need them have been regularly played out over the last decade and have become more prominent recently with the passing of the 2008 Education and Skills Act which will require young people to remain in some form of learning or training until the age of 18. The person who picked up Lord Dearing’s mantle and who has perhaps been most associated with qualification reform in the Labour years, Sir Mike Tomlinson, popped up this year to add his thoughts on GCSEs. “It does raise the question” he said, “of why we need such a complex and terminal exam at that point and if we do what purpose it serves.”

Broadly, three were three themes to these discussions this year. One, that as Sir Mike implied, GCSEs are no longer the standard rite of passage for school leavers that they once were because more and more youngsters are staying on. “I think we would need to have some form of assessment of progress at 16, simply to give a clear indication of whether a student was on the right course,” was Sir Mike’s view of what we need in the future. Two, do GCSEs really stretch bright pupils enough? After all many top schools seek international alternatives or resort to taking AS levels early instead. This debate has rumbled around for some time and has both maths and science in its glare at the moment. And three, do GCSEs, or rather the treadmill of exams, just deaden the minds of inquisitive teenagers; “in our exam-obsessed system students are taught to pass tests rather than encouraged to learn skills” as Mary Bousted of ATL put it. With both major Parties still committed to GCSEs, it’s a debate that’s unlikely to go away although the Conservatives have raised an interesting point. GCSEs yes, but collecting as many as possible, no. They favour a cap of say eight per learner.

Second, and another issue that was high up on the list of priorities in May 1997 and is still with us now is that of how best to develop a credible alternative learning route for young people.

As the GCSE results were being published last week, the CBI was releasing its latest research showing that over a half of its members remained concerned about the levels of functional skills amongst school-leavers, the Institute of Directors was calling for “a much higher priority to be placed on literacy, numeracy and skills such as public speaking,” the charity Edge was making the case for “a revolution in the education system to ensure all students can take a broad balance of theoretical and practical courses” and Barnados was pleading for “more alternative and vocational courses” for young people.

These are not unfamiliar messages and in many ways Labour has done an enormous amount to respond to them, beefing up apprenticeships, developing Diplomas, encouraging schools to take up vocational qualifications like BTECs and inviting employers take a lead in helping shape the qualification system they want but the core problem remains: vocational qualifications are fine – but for other people’s children. The argument about the true worth of nationally recognised vocational qualifications in terms of employment opportunities, wage returns, social harmony and self esteem has yet to be won. While the Conservatives may well be right that arbitrary equivalencies between different types of qualification leaves a lot to be desired, their incursion into the debate on equivalencies, has in the words of the Guardian left schools “mired in uncertainty” about how to proceed with vocational options. It’s the inevitable result, as John Bangs of the NUT remarked, of qualifications becoming “utterly politicised.” Politicians may favour choice and letting the market decide but seemingly only when they’ve set the rules first. This seems unlikely to change in the short-term.

Third, youth unemployment. NEETs may not have been a term that was widely used in 1997 but ‘lost generation’ was and sadly it’s being bandied about now twelve years later. A rash of dire statistics about the employment prospects for young people accompanied the release of GCSEs this year and culminated in a tough report from the Prince’s Trust and Sheffield University which suggested the UK could witness ‘mass levels of youth unemployment.’

The government has promised that it won’t abandon young people as it claimed happened in past recessions and just this week promised to extend its guarantee of a job for 18-24 year olds so that it applied to those out of work for 10 as opposed to 12 months.

NEET figures remain a stain on the public record over the last decade and despite numerous initiatives and much hand wringing look like reaching record levels again this year at one in six 18-24 year olds, the 4th highest amongst OECD countries. Much of this is due to the recession but equally some, as the Rathbone/Nuffield Inquiry revealed last year, is also due to teenagers being turned off school. That’s why the issue of exams at 16 is so important. The difficulty at present is in unpacking the role of the SFA; it comes described as a funding not a planning body but subsequent paragraphs give it at least half a dozen roles bordering on planning. These include managing the framework and the development of the FE service including its performance, setting the trading conditions for the provider market – place, managing the three formal arms of the National Apprenticeship Service (NAS,) the National Employer Service (NES) and the new Advancement and Careers Service, Offender Learning and the growing integration with Jobcentre Plus. It’s one of those places in the Paper where the wiring seems dangerously near to getting tangled.

© Edexcel Policy Watch 2009. Steve Besley is Head of Policy at Edexcel. Policy watch is a service intended to help busy people understand developments in the world of education. Visit Edexcel at www.edexcel.org.uk