British Government Faces Lawsuit Over Exam Results

LONDON — Soon after the proposal of a major education overhaul that could affect millions of students, a group composed of teachers’ unions, schools and local governments throughout England moved to take the government to court over its refusal to allow for the re-grading of some disputed G.C.S.E. exam results.


Their move on Friday came several days after Education Minister Michael Gove announced that the General Certificate of Secondary Education exams — currently taken by students throughout England, Wales and Northern Ireland at age 16 — would be replaced by an English Baccalaureate. (Students in Scotland take a different set of exams at 16, known as Standards.)

The change, due to take effect in 2017, would do away with the current system, which encompasses a wide range of subjects, and in which students’ grades are based partly on course work completed at home and on modules completed over the course of the school year. It will be replaced with a system that focuses on traditional subjects like English, math and science, and in which grades depend on a single end-of-year exam.

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