Exam boards set out GCSE shake-up plans

Two major exam boards have set out plans to shake up the current GCSE system - after Education Secretary Michael Gove announced a consultation aimed at replacing it with a tougher O-level style qualification.
Mark Dawe, chief executive of the Oxford, Cambridge and RSA Examinations (OCR) board called for lower-level GCSE pass grades to be scrapped while the parent company of Edexcel unveiled plans for a new "gold standard" test for 16-year-olds.

The plans were outlined as thousands of teenagers prepare to receive their results, with A-levels coming this Thursday and GCSEs a week later.

Mr Dawe wants to scrap the two-tier GCSE system, where exams are divided into higher and lower-level papers. Those who take the lower-tier paper cannot get higher than a C grade pass.

He told the Independent: "We're doing our students a disservice if they feel that's going to allow them to progress further."

Mr Dawe pointed out that most employers only recognised A* to C grade passes and refused to count grades D to G towards employment, arguing that the exam should be reconstituted to offer only A* to D or E grade passes.

A separate lower qualification could be used by certain students as a "stepping stone" towards taking a full GCSE, and with the age range extended to 18.

"Some leavers won't be able to achieve it at 16 and it is therefore appropriate it could go on to 17 or 18 for them," Mr Dawe said.

Meanwhile an international panel of education experts has been set up by Pearson, Edexcel's parent company, to plan a qualification which would begin by offering new exams in English, maths and science.

The panel will include members from Harvard as well as the Singapore and Australian education systems, with the aim of creating an international "gold standard" exam, and will be headed by Sir Michael Barber, a former education adviser to Tony Blair.

In what could be seen as a swipe at Mr Gove's ambition to return to the O-level, Sir Michael said: "The gold standard is not what happened in the 1950s in England.

"It is what is happening in Singapore and Hong Kong and Ontario and Alberta now. The gold standard is being set by the best education operating in the 21st century."

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