A-level reforms: Michael Gove's bid to grab headlines will merely narrow pupils' learning

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/27/michael-gove-headline-tory-leader-education

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The most important thing about Michael Gove, the education secretary, is that he is a journalist by trade. He has an unerring eye for a headline, particularly one that plays well in the rightwing press. Every school should be sent a King James Bible to celebrate the 400th anniversary of publication; the Queen should have a yacht for her diamond jubilee; all schools should be called academies. One can almost hear the mind of a former news editor (for 18 months at the Times) whirring away.

The same instinct for the simple, the dramatic and the showy governs his approach to recasting school exams, of which his announcement last week on A-levels was the latest example. Away with the new, and in with the old. Back to the 1950s, when 18-year-olds got their heads down and scribbled furiously for three hours on the causes of the English civil war or character development in Pride and Prejudice, without any new-fangled nonsense of course assessment, projects, modules and media studies, while the streets stayed free of drugs, children respected their elders, and Winston Churchill resided in Downing Street. Gove will give us "real" A-levels, like real ale and real food. The headline is what counts, never mind the detail.

From the 1960s, A-levels were widely recognised as the biggest defect of English education, giving teenagers the most narrow and specialised curriculum in Europe. They required 16-year-olds to opt for sciences or arts: typically maths, physics and chemistry; or English, history and French. Only a small minority mixed subjects across the two cultures. The result was that too many scientists and engineers lacked communication skills, while too many arts graduates lacked numeracy and scientific literacy. Equally pernicious, by general consent, was the rigid status divide between academic and vocational learning.

Little has changed, though nearly all Gove's predecessors tried to find a solution. Governments, not daring to abandon or even dilute the A-level "gold standard", invented new qualifications alongside A-levels, in the vain hope these would acquire equal esteem. In 2004 Labour, on Downing Street's orders, rejected the Tomlinson report, which proposed to subsume A-levels into overlapping academic and vocational diplomas. Instead, it merely introduced the vocational diploma, which predictably flopped.

From 2000, A-levels were split into advanced subsidiary (AS) levels, taken in year 12 and A2s, taken in year 13. Pupils would study four or five subjects at AS and continue with two or three to A2, counting relevant AS "units" they had completed (and been examined on) towards the final award. Being a compromise between traditional A-levels and the baccalaureate programmes of five or six subjects (usually including compulsory maths and a foreign language) followed by most continental pupils, it wasn't a complete success. But increased numbers chose, at least at AS level, a mix of subjects that crossed traditional boundaries. Even the Russell group of elite universities pronounced the system "broadly fit for purpose".

Now Gove has thrown it overboard. AS levels will survive, but will not count towards the full A-level which, he insists, must be taken as a "linear" two-year course, examined at its conclusion. At the same time he has introduced new school league tables, giving special credit for pupils who get A-level grades AAB in what he calls "facilitating subjects", such as chemistry, biology, Latin and maths, which are most likely to get them into elite universities.

So he has not only removed incentives for pupils to follow a broad curriculum but also ruled that traditional combinations of three academic subjects should retain their high status. Subjects such as business, accounting, dance and psychology are firmly discouraged. After Gove's league tables revealed that, in nearly a quarter of schools, no pupils gained "facilitating" AABs, Ofsted chief Michael Wilshaw announced at the weekend a "rapid response" inquiry, adding to the pressure on schools to limit sixth-formers to academic study.

Rigour, coherence, high standards, "proper" exams, an end to learning in "bite-sized chunks", no more "dumbing down": those are the headlines. How they will fit with Gove's stated ambition that all pupils study maths to 18 is anyone's guess. No doubt the news editor (sorry, secretary of state) is drafting another headline even now.

Gove wants his new A-levels to start as early as 2015, alongside his new Ebacc certificates for 16-year-olds. He also wants to stop exam boards competing to offer schools different syllabuses in the same subjects. Instead, boards will compete for "franchises", giving them the exclusive right to provide syllabuses and mark papers in each subject, rather as Virgin or First Capital Connect acquire the right to run rail services. While the exams are transformed, therefore, the machinery for setting and marking them must also be overhauled, demanding change on a scale that schools and examining boards will struggle to deliver.

The significance of 2015 is obvious. Other ministers have big projects: George Osborne's "deficit reduction", Iain Duncan Smith's "universal credit", Jeremy Hunt's "NHS reform" (inherited from Andrew Lansley) – but all are making uncertain progress. Gove alone can look forward to completing his project by the election, largely because he ignores almost all advice from professionals. A news editor who produces stories with arresting headlines becomes a candidate for editor. Similarly, Gove, if he is minded to run, – he keeps denying interest – will be a plausible candidate for the Tory leadership.