News of education secretary Michael Gove’s plans to scrap GCSEs made headlines this morning and the story warrants some unpicking.
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News of education secretary Michale Gove’s plans to scrap GCSEs made headlines this morning and the story warrants some unpicking.
Chris Cook of the Financial Times has demonstrated how this plan could interfere with social mobility, but his projections have already been batted away by Gove.
A pressing question remains about the nature of the new exams. The claim is that O levels are coming back, and the moniker “traditional” is littered across reports.
The leaked document stipulates that the names of the new exams are undecided, though the description of a single exam model and emphasis on ‘core’ subjects suggests that something like O levels are in mind, with a separate exam for those not deemed fit for that challenge.
What is clear is Gove’s motivation: his aim is to ensure “that our education system stands in comparison to the world’s most rigorous”. Questioned this morning in the House of Commons, he defends his decisions by referring again and again to catching up with “the world’s best”, to the UK’s declining position in Pisa tables and to Singapore.
• Wales education minister: Gove’s way of announcing GCSE reforms was “bonkers” 21 Jun 2012
It is unfortunate Gove is so much a product of his times that he can only view education in terms of a global qualifications race, even when other countries are turning their attention to the actual conditions of a 21st-century world, and looking to align their education systems accordingly. When questioned about whether he was looking back rather than forward, Gove insisted that he was looking “outwards”.
It is high time he adopted a more nuanced view of drawing global comparisons in education.
It is all very well for him to call Finland “an outlier”, to avoid responding to the implications of its success, but he cannot claim that one country’s achievement cannot be replicated while seeking to turn the UK – with its divergent history, culture and economy – into Singapore.
US scholars rightly doubt replicating Singapore’s tough standards would have the same effect in their country, where, like the UK, factors such as parental aspiration are less uniform.
Gove also does not seem to have taken on board the analysis of U.S. Pisa results showing that their relative declining scores over time are strongly linked to child poverty. So the US is particularly bad at educating its low-income children, and England appears to the the same – according to this DFE analysis (pdf), in England, “the impact of pupils’ socio-economic background is significantly higher than the OECD average”. Incidentally, the same is true of Gove’s beloved Singapore.
The proposed changes will be reviewed in the Autumn and when the time comes, Gove must not be allowed to defend them on the grounds of global competitiveness, when he is picking and choosing those countries whose values he endorses.
That he is a successful product of exams that divvied up pupils on the basis of straightforward knowledge must not blind him to the fact that forward-looking tests (pdf)today embrace complexity and a wider range of skills, fit to be used by all – not 60 or 80% – of pupils.
31 Responses to “Gove must stop seeing the British education system as part of a global qualifications race”
Mr. Sensible
I think these proposals are completely nonsensical. Will be interesting to see what Clegg does next…
JC
Will you be setting the CSE papers then. If not, how do you know (not think, know) so much about them?
Anonymous
You don’t need to set them to understand the societal effects and aims. Only YOUR style of social engineering is allowed, of course.
Taking bets on how long it is before JC calls me a commie, people!
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[…] education minister Leighton Andrews, who this week vowed Wales would not follow Michael Gove’s plans to scrap GCSEs and bring back O-Levels. He said Wales “certainly won’t be bringing back […]
Ed's Talking Balls
Gove is a hated figure in teaching union circles. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Well done, Gove – keep up the good work.
And anyone with an interest in freedom of speech would do well to read his comments to and about the Leveson Farce (or Inquiry, if you prefer).