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Education Secretary Michael Gove wants harder A-Levels

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If you are due to take your A-levels in 2016, your exams may be a bit harder

'Traditional' A-levels may return. Education Secretary Michael Gove has sent a letter to examinations regulator Ofqual in which he says universities should create a new set of A-levels.

In the letter, seen by BBC Newsnight, Mr Gove says he "does not envisage the Department for Education having a role" in developing the new qualifications.

Mr Gove says he is concerned that A-levels are failing to properly prepare students for university.

He goes on to say preparing students is the primary role of the A-level.

Formal control of A-level content will now be taken away from exam boards and handed to universities who will in future, according to a letter obtained by Newsnight, now be asked to "drive the system".

He writes: "It is important that this rolling back allows universities…to drive the system."

"Leading university academics tell me that A-levels do not prepare students well enough for the demands of an undergraduate degree, and I am troubled by reports from learned bodies such as the Institute of Physics.”

Exam boards will still set the courses but a school will now only be advised to put its students in for it if the course has been approved by a Russell Group university.

He has asked Ofqual to have oversight over this new regime: "I will expect the bar to be a high one: university ownership of the exams must be real and committed, not a tick-box exercise."

Newsnight has been given the letter the secretary of state sent to Ofqual on Friday.

He told them: "I do not envisage the Department for Education having a role in the development of A level qualifications. It is more important that universities are satisfied that A-levels enable young people to start their undergraduate degrees having gained the right knowledge and skills, than that Ministers are able to influence content or methods of assessment.

"I am particularly keen that universities should be able to determine subject content, and that they should endorse specifications, including details of how the subject should be assessed."

He goes on: "I am increasingly concerned that current A levels - though they have much to commend them - fall short of commanding the level of confidence we would want to see.

"Leading university academics tell me that A-levels do not prepare students well enough for the demands of an undergraduate degree, and I am troubled by reports from learned bodies such as the Institute of Physics. I know that your own research has identified particular concerns regarding both subject content and assessment at A-level."

This is a big political and cultural change. The onus will now be on universities to ensure the students coming through to them are of the standard they would like to teach.

There will be a knock-on further down the education system as primary has to be toughened to meet the demands of secondary to in turn meet the demands of A-levels and so on.

Michael Gove is keen for British schools and universities to up their game.
This will mean an era of grade deflation, fewer students will get the top marks. Mr Gove's letter also makes clear that if universities want the system of modules to be done away with then, so be it.

In his letter, he says: "The discussions I have had with university academics and school and college leaders on the subject of A-levels have left me concerned about the impact of the current modular structure on students' education, and their ability to make the connections between different topics within a subject that are so crucial for deep understanding."

He says he looks forward to views on this, especially on the efficacy of modules taken in January "together with the impact of resitting on confidence in A-level standards."

All of this is also intensely political because Michael Gove does not imagine that any future Labour or Liberal government will be able to unpick these changes.

"What future government is going to take this involvement away from universities?", a source asks me.

This is from the Gove school of hard knocks. It may be painful, but standards have to go up if Britain's future workforce is going to have the skills it needs to compete in the future. There is this and other announcements on the curriculum due in the next few months - expect the same principle to be applied to GCSEs, maybe in a more extreme form.

The government is taking action because of leaps and bounds being made elsewhere in the field of scientific inquiry.

Sebastian Thrun, Professor of Artificial Intelligence at Stanford, recently opened his course up to anyone to take, no matter where they lived in the world.

A quarter of a million people took up his offer.

"World-leading publications like Science and Nature are producing their own curricula and online textbook," my source says.

"Many pupils may decide that such courses offer them far more than state controlled exams of questionable value," he adds.

It will take time for the ramifications to be fully understood. There are those universities who have an excellent department catering for a particular subject but whose overall record is not matchless - they may feel peeved. And there will be those at exam boards who will feel that universities do not know the first thing about the intricacies of testing students

There is one more thing: the secretary of state wants all of this to "make rapid progress". If you are due to take your A-levels in 2016, your exams may be a bit harder.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-17588292

Never did A levels but GCSES certainly should be tougher.

I did NO revision or anything, skipped best part of the last year of school, missed a load of coursework too, winged it on the day of the written exams and still ended up with As Bs and Cs in everything

Bastard they are hard enough :idc:

Especially synoptic shiz in A2 of AS. Ive forgotten everything.

I found A Levels harder than my current degree... but then I'm a first year :tongue:

Gap between GCSE and A Level is already bigger than the gap between A Level and uni. They don't need to make them harder, they just need to change what is taught in order to prepare people for uni. For example, I never once had to properly reference anything until October.

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Originally Posted by Vicky. (Post 5055419)

I think they are fine. If they were harder with so many subjects I think brains would fry. That said if A Levels are made harder, GCSEs should be too else the jump would be crazy and many who coped with GCSEs may completely crumble at A Level. Wasting at least 1 year, perhaps 2, of their time.

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Originally Posted by Shaun (Post 5055441)

I found A Levels harder than my current degree... but then I'm a first year :tongue:

Ive heard so many say that A Levels are the hardest :joker:

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Originally Posted by Jords (Post 5055445)

This happened to me anyway. I pissed my GCSEs with no revision, thought I could get away with the same at A Level, ended up having to resit all but one of my AS summer exams in the A2 year. And the exam I didn't retake was because I dropped the subject.

Honestly don't think I'd have carried on at college if A Levels were any harder.

I did no work all last year at AS then thought **** Im really not going get away with it like at GCSE and pretty much learned everything in 6 weeks with intense revision. Was studying literally day and night until 3am.. managed to pull BBCC my teachers were pretty shocked :joker:

But yepp the gap is big enough now.

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Originally Posted by Boothy (Post 5055442)

See that surprised me at uni. So many of my friends had never had to reference things properly and had never been taught how to. A lot of them were also never taught how to structure and compose a curriculum vitae. My school did teach these things and they are things that you will need to know in life.

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Originally Posted by Jords (Post 5055447)

Ive heard so many say that A Levels are the hardest :joker:

In my view A-levels seem harder because you are studying a variance of subjects, whereas at uni you are specialising in one at a greater depth.

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Originally Posted by ukturtle (Post 5055461)

Yeah, the only CV I had until a few months ago was from when I was 16 and applying to college. Nothing like the sort of thing employers are looking for. Had to have a look at samples on the internet to find out what was meant to go on it. Seemed to me that school and college were too 'academic' and too focussed on grades. I didn't really get taught any proper, practical life lessons.

Education Secretary Michael Gove wants harder A-Levels

ALL education should be "harder" - too many young people are obtaining educational qualifications of questionable merit and value - degrees in hairdressing and floral design, FGS !

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Originally Posted by ukturtle (Post 5055461)

See that surprised me at uni. So many of my friends had never had to reference things properly and had never been taught how to. A lot of them were also never taught how to structure and compose a curriculum vitae. My school did teach these things and they are things that you will need to know in life.

dats me

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Originally Posted by Omah (Post 5055470)

ALL education should be "harder" - too many young people are obtaining educational qualifications of questionable merit and value - degrees in hairdressing and floral design, FGS !

I have no issue with the broader scale of degrees that can be obtained, but I do think education needs a greater proportion of focus on practical skills. You can be the most educated person in the world, but if you can't apply that education to anything then it is worthless.

Issue I've got with the education system is that you don't really 'learn' much. I mean, I can't remember much from my GCSEs, especially in subjects I haven't done for three years, stuff like science and German. The only thing I properly learned was how to remember information and regurgitate it on exam day.

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Originally Posted by Boothy (Post 5055490)

Screw GCSEs like I said cant even remember anything from last year what I need to know :bawling:

Hmm I don't personally think A-levels are harder than Uni, with A-levels you get so much more help and support and I think a lot of the content is easier, even though I'm only first year a lot of what I've done is more complex I think, and with A-level coursework you have loads of time and help for it whereas here you have less of both

That's not to say A-levels aren't difficult though, you do need to put the effort in and can't just wing them as easily as you could GCSEs

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Originally Posted by ukturtle (Post 5055482)

Education needs to focus on the 3 R's

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datab...cience-reading

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World education rankings: which country does best at reading, maths and science?

The world education rankings from the OECD are out. The UK is slipping down in maths, reading and science, and has been overtaken by Poland and Norway, this major study of 65 countries reveals today.

Around 470,000 15-year-olds across the world sat a numeracy, literacy and science test last year, the results of which inform the latest Pisa study by the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

It shows the UK's reputation as one of the world's best for education is at risk, and has tumbled several places since 2006.

The UK is ranked 25th for reading, 28th for maths and 16th for science. In 2006, when 57 countries were included in the study, it was placed 17th, 24th and 14th respectively. Poland has stretched ahead of the UK in maths, while Norway is now ranked higher in reading and maths.

Andreas Shleicher, head of the Pisa programme, said the picture for the UK was "stagnant at best". "Many other countries have seen quite significant improvement," he added.

http://www.publications.parliament.u...cc/154/154.pdf

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Although the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills, and its predecessor, the Department for Education and Skills, spent around £5 billion on basic skills courses between 2001 and 2007 (£9 billion by 2011), large numbers of the adult working population of England remain functionally illiterate and innumerate. Tackling poor literacy, language and numeracy skills is essential if more people are to realise their full potential and the country is to remain competitive in an increasingly global economy.

In 2010, an estimated 75% of the adult population of working age had numeracy skills below the level of a good pass at GCSE and 56% had literacy skills below this level. The United Kingdom had relative levels of illiteracy and innumeracy some three times that of the Scandinavian countries.

Britain used to be a "nation of shop-keepers" - it's rapidly becoming a "nation of shop-workers" ..... :rolleyes:

This man really isn't doing much to make me like him anymore than I already do. Can't stand him :bored:

As if they aren't hard enough at the moment! This is ridiculous! :bored:

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Originally Posted by Omah (Post 5055543)

Britain used to be a "nation of shop-keepers" - it's rapidly becoming a "nation of shop-workers" ..... :rolleyes:

Because we don't bother to train anyone up for anything.

We should really copycat some of the things the Germans do: over there you have to be qualified to work in a shop. But hey, at leas that gives you a profession and training in a job that'll be readily available.

The standard is fairly reasonable in Languages but I hear that in Maths and the sciences the standard has dropped far too much.

I wouldn't say my degree was harder than the A-level but it required a lot more self motivation and researching to do well. The A-level syllabuses tend to be covered in one textbook.

Oh dear, I think as with a lot of things the Con/LibDem coalition has done with polices,this is likely another where they will have to think again on.

What the Education system needs most now,and for a good while into the future is stability and continuity not more reforms and changing things just on a whim.

This Govt, must start really thinking before it speaks, rather than constantly speaking without thinking at all.

I have young people come to me for internship or work experience while at Uni and although some of them are great, some of them struggle with the simplest of tasks. They're at university and their spelling and general written work is appalling. What's more, they don't think it matters that much or will affect them in their career. When I look at their A Level results some of them, amazingly, are pretty good. How can that be? How can you get a good mark when you can't write in your own language in complete sentences or use an apostrophe?

Every year more people are passing A levels with higher grades, and I honestly don't believe that is because teaching is getting better or young people are getting cleverer.