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The second half of January 2003 saw the publication of two very
important documents on education by the Blair Government: a discussion
document with the title 14‑19: Opportunity and Excellence
and a White Paper on The Future of Higher Education. This
Editorial aims to present a brief preliminary analysis of their
main proposals; and I will deal with each of the documents in turn.
14‑19: Opportunity and Excellence
Many of the ideas and themes presented in this new document were
foreshadowed in the DIES Green Paper 14‑19: Extending Opportunities,
Raising Standards, published in February 2002 and discussed
in the Summer 2002 number of FORUM. Yet in some respects
this 2003 document is stronger and more coherent than the one published
a year ago because the Government has clearly taken note of many
of the views expressed at the 58 Green Paper consultation meetings
held around the country last Summer.
There is still a strong commitment to the idea of a 14 to 19 ‘continuum’,
with the age of 16 thereby losing its traditional status as a major
‘break-point’ in the lives of young people. What the Government
seems clearly anxious to articulate is an evolving vision for greater
coherence in the 14 to 19 phase of education and training combined
with a flexible approach which enables all students to proceed at
a pace best suited to their developing abilities and preferred ways
of learning. To all intents and purposes, then, the National Curriculum
will now effectively end at 14, followed by greater flexibility
and a clearer sense of continuity in the years spanning the age
16 barrier.
It is proposed that English, mathematics and science will remain
at the heart of the compulsory curriculum for 14 to 16 year-olds,
with the current substantial Programme of Study for science being
reviewed to arrive at a core content that is considered suitable
for all learners. All students will learn about work and enterprise;
and ICT (information and communications technology) will remain
compulsory for the time being, though with the understanding that
the skills involved will increasingly be taught through other subjects
in future years. Citizenship, religious education, sex education,
careers education and physical education will remain compulsory
to ensure, in the words of the document, that ‘all students continue
to learn to be responsible and healthy adults’. As envisaged in
the 2002 Green Paper, modern foreign languages and design and technology
will no longer be ‘required study’ for all 14 to 16 year-old students
and will join the arts and the humanities as subjects where there
will be ‘a new statutory entitlement of access’.
The document is anxious to highlight three reforms designed to
address the weakness and low status of vocational education. It
points out that new GCSEs in eight vocational subjects were introduced
in September 2002: in Applied Art and Design; Applied Business;
Engineering; Health and Social Care; Applied ICT; Leisure and Tourism;
Manufacturing; and Applied Science. Each was designed to be a double
award, equivalent to two GCSEs. Now to complement this initiative,
there is to be a new system of ‘hybrid’ GCSEs each with a common
core and optional vocational or general units. Secondly, modern
apprenticeships will be improved and expanded, so that at least
28 per cent of young people can become apprentices by 2004. Thirdly,
GCSEs and A Levels will no longer be labelled as either ‘vocational’
or ‘academic’ (or indeed as ‘hybrid’). The document rightly points
out that status matters and that engineering should enjoy equal
status with mathematics or art and design.
There are a number of issues where the Government has clearly had
second thoughts since the publication of the Green Paper. There
will be no new A Level A grade ‘with distinction’, the Government
preferring to stick with the Advanced Extension Awards (AEAs) which
were introduced in the Summer of 2002 to ‘stretch’ the most able
Advanced Level students by requiring a greater depth of understanding
than does A Level itself.
At the same time, the Government has decided to scrap the proposal
for a new ‘overarching award’ to mark the completion of the 14 to
19 phase, called provisionally the Matriculation Diploma. This was
attacked by many organisations for the lack of a foundation level
diploma, below the intermediate level, which would send out all
the wrong signals to those students who are most difficult to motivate.
It is also true that universities and employers were not attracted
to the idea and that without such currency, the Matriculation Diploma
simply could not succeed.
The document deliberately distinguishes between short-term and
long-term reforms. It announces the appointment of a new Working
Group for 14 to 19 Reform, to be headed by former Chief Inspector
Mike Tomlinson, which will be expected to look at the possible introduction
of an English Baccalaureate, designed to recognise vocational and
academic courses as well as activities outside the classroom, such
as volunteering, and reward achievements by students at both ends
of the so-called ‘ability spectrum’. In the words of the document:
Baccalaureate-style qualifications of this type work well in other
countries, and we believe that this model, designed to suit English
circumstances, could tackle longstanding English problems, giving
greater emphasis to completing courses of study (and training as
appropriate) through to the age of 18 or 19, without a heavier burden
of examination and assessment’ (page 13). This suggested area of
reform, threatening as it does the so-called ‘gold standard’ A Level,
has received considerable emphasis in newspaper reports of the discussion
document – the headline to the story in The Times Educational
Supplement (24 January 2003) being ‘Future without A Levels
is on the cards’.
There are, of course, shortcomings and disappointments in the Government’s
new approach. For one thing, the document shows great timidity where
the future of the GCSE is concerned. On page 11, it accepts that
the GCSE has become a qualification at two levels, with Level
2 (or grades A*-C) being viewed by the public as ‘success’ and Level
I (or grades D-G) being widely seen as ‘failure’. This means that
for many young people, achieving Level I is demotivating and that
they would often prefer not to reveal that they have taken GCSEs
than admit to gaining a lower grade. We know that many secondary
schools find it necessary to ‘ration’ their attention and resources
in order to concentrate on those students at the ‘borderline’ between
grades C and D. There really is no point in having a public examination
at 16 if we are serious about wanting to establish a 14 to 19 ‘continuum’.
This leads us on to the second major disappointment in the document:
the failure to abolish league tables. In any sensible 14 to 19 system,
there would be no place for examination tables for 16 and 18 year-olds.
It is, after all, the crucial factor of league table success that
has led so many schools to developing new ways of identifying and
encouraging those students who might, with additional support, manage
a C grade in a number of subjects.
Finally, we seem to have abandoned any possibility of a broad,
balanced and coherent curriculum for all students beyond the age
of 14. Greater clarity about the future composition of an English
bac might mean a reversal of current trends, but it is difficult
to be optimistic about this. The proposed curriculum reforms are
not supposed to take effect before the 2004/2005 academic year at
the earliest; but we know that hundreds of secondary schools are
‘jumping the gun’ by dropping compulsory lessons in foreign languages
and in design and technology. The key to combining flexibility and
breadth at Key Stage Four lies in a modular curriculum structure,
opening up the possibility of breadth over time, but the Government
shows little or no sign of recognising this.
The Funding of Higher Education
After eighteen months of media speculation, four postponed launches
and a number of well-informed ‘leaked stories’ about marked divisions
of opinion within Blair’s Cabinet, Education Secretary Charles Clark
finally announced the Government’s plans for the future funding
of higher education in the 105-page White Paper The Future of
higher Education, published on 22 January. We now know that
universities in England will be able to charge ‘top-up’ tuition
fees of up to £3,000 a year for their most popular and prestigious
courses. Students will not have to pay the new fees until they have
graduated and are earning at least £15,000 a year (a repayment threshold
that is higher than the current one, of £ 10,000). Poorer students
with parents or families earning less than £ 10,000 a year will
be eligible for a grant of £1,000 a year. This will all come into
effect in the Autumn of 2006. It has been
estimated that many students will leave university with total debts
amounting to at least £21,000: £9,000 in tuition fees and £12,000
in maintenance costs. And accountancy experts have calculated that
all this may well lead to graduates facing a higher rate of tax
than that paid by millionaires, once they reach the £15,000 threshold
(report in The Independent, 23 January 2003).
The Question of Access
Many have argued that the fear of debt will deter many teenagers,
and particularly working-class teenagers, from embarking
on a university course. We know that the social class gap among
those entering higher education is already unacceptably wide and
growing. Those from the ‘top’ three social classes are almost three
times as likely to enter higher education as those from the ‘bottom’
three. And young people from professional backgrounds are over five
times more likely to enter higher education than those from unskilled
backgrounds.
The White Paper announces the appointment of an independent Access
Regulator, whose task will be to agree with universities on action
to increase the take-up of students from ‘disadvantaged groups’
and who can then impose penalties or withdraw the right to charge
variable fees, where appropriate, if universities do not fulfil
their part of the agreement. The aim of the appointment is a laudable
one, but it is not clear exactly how this new system will work,
and it is feared by many that could involve the imposition of new
and invariably cumbersome bureaucratic controls and regulations.
Currently around 43 per cent of 18 to 30 year-olds
in England enter some form of higher education; and the Government
is committed to raising this figure to 50 per cent by the year 2010.
The White Paper makes it clear that this target will largely be
met by increasing the number of youngsters on new two-year vocational
courses, many of these being offered at further education colleges.
In the words of the document: ‘We do not favour expansion on the
single template of the traditional three-year honours degree’ (p.
60).
Towards a New Structure for Higher Education?
The White Paper is about far more than new funding arrangements
and the widening of access. What is being proposed is the rapid
development or intensification of a hierarchy of institutions.
Three-quarters of research funding from the Higher Education Funding
Council for England already goes to just 25 institutions. Now research
money is to be concentrated even more on ‘top-performing’ departments.
The Government is urging ‘less research-intensive institutions’
to all but forget about trying to make breakthroughs in, say, science
and technology and instead to work more closely with local companies
solving ‘real-world problems’. In other words, what the Government
wants is the wholesale restoration of the two-tier university/polytechnic
divide.
Clyde Chitty
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