English Baccalaureate Certificates: Out go GCSEs, in comes the tough new six-subject Baccalaureate

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English Baccalaureate Certificates: Out go GCSEs, in comes the tough new six-subject Baccalaureate

September 18th, 2012

FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda

600,000 pupils will start EBaccs in English, maths and science from 2015
Exams could take three hours to finish compared with 90 minutes for GCSEs
Marks will also be awarded for spelling, grammar and punctuation
Gove insists exams will remove ‘bite-sized, spoon feeding’

By
Saran Harris and Jason Groves

PUBLISHED:

17:03 EST, 16 September 2012

|

UPDATED:

17:20 EST, 17 September 2012

Reforms: Michael Gove announced changes to GCSE exams aiming to put the focus back on academic rigour and one-off exams

The biggest shake-up in school exams for a generation will see discredited GCSEs scrapped and replaced with English Baccalaureate Certificates.

A return to end-of-course exams in traditional academic subjects and the slashing of coursework and resits will ‘restore rigour’ to the education system, Michael Gove said yesterday.

The Education Secretary also announced tough core EBC courses which will be taught from 2015, with the first exams sat two years later.

Students will be awarded a full English Baccalaureate if they succeed in six core subjects: English, maths, two sciences – from physics, biology and chemistry – a language and geography or history.

The GCSE brand could be scrapped altogether in 2016 to make a clean break with a system first introduced in 1988.

A single exam board will preside over each subject, bringing an end to competition which Mr Gove said had encouraged a ‘corrupt effort to massage up pass rates’.

Announcing the reforms in the Commons, he said: ‘It is time for the race to the bottom to end. It is time to tackle grade inflation and dumbing down. It is time to raise aspirations.’

‘After years of drift, decline and dumbing down, at last we are reforming our examination system to compete with the world’s best.’

The aim of Mr Gove’s reforms is to restore O-level-style rigour in a bid to halt the nation’s slide down the international schools league tables. However his ambition to fully replicate the O-level system, in which only the brightest sat the toughest exam, has been shelved following opposition from Nick Clegg.

The Deputy Prime Minister’s
intervention also delayed the reforms by a year, raising fears Labour
could try to save GCSEs if the party wins the next election. But
education sources last night said the reforms were ‘unstoppable’.

Mr Gove also revealed less able pupils would be offered the chance to take the new EBC exams at 17 or 18 instead of 16.

Catch up: The new exams are more rigorous and top grades will only go to the brightest children in an attempt to help English schools catch up with other countries as we trail in school standards

He and Mr Clegg put on a show of unity
yesterday with a joint article in which they launched a pre-emptive
attack on teaching unions and the Labour Left.

They said: ‘Together we can overcome
those forces that have held our children back – the entrenched
establishment voices who have become the enemies of promise.’

The proposals will see hundreds of
thousands of 11-year-olds, who started secondary school this term,
becoming the new ‘guinea pigs’ of the education system. Exam boards have
previously been accused of ‘dumbing down’ GCSEs to attract the
multi-million pound business from secondary schools.

But under the reforms, just one will
be selected by Ofqual to offer qualifications in each subject in a bid
to prevent the ‘race to the bottom’.

Nick Gibb, a schools minister until this month’s reshuffle, insisted the plans couldn’t be reversed even if Labour won the next general election

GCSEs in other subjects are also being toughened up and are unlikely to keep the ‘GCSE’ title.

Currently, many GCSEs have two tiers so pupils can either be entered for the foundation level – the simpler of the two and the maximum grade achievable is a C – or the higher level, where students can get up to an A*.

Under the shake-up, the foundation and higher level will be scrapped in the EBC subjects, meaning there will be no cap on how well pupils can achieve.

A consultation document by the Department for Education suggests exam boards come up with ‘new and different grading structures’. They will be expected to ‘differentiate’ between top achievers and provide a ‘statement of achievement’ for those who are not entered for EBCs.

The Government’s ‘preferred approach’ is to remove controlled assessment – or coursework done under exam conditions – from all six English Baccalaureate subjects.

Other reforms including scrapping bite-sized modules and resits.

The overhaul is expected to result in fewer top achievers. This summer, pupils passed 22.4 per cent of GCSEs at A or A*.

Stephen Twigg MP, Labour’s education spokesman, claimed the changes were ‘totally out of date’ and could be a ‘Trojan horse’ for the introduction of a two-tier system in the future. Teaching unions also condemned the change. Martin Johnson, of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, said: ‘O-levels were abolished 25 years ago for a very good reason: they just tested memory and essay writing, which are not crucial skills for the majority of jobs or life today.’

But business welcomed the move. Simon Walker, director general of the Institute of Directors, said: ‘Business leaders want a stronger curriculum and more rigorous exams. These measures are welcome progress towards delivering that.’

HOW THE NEW EBACCs WILL BE DIFFERENT TO GCSEs

GCSEs Tens of thousands of pupils can bump up grades by re-sitting parts of the GCSE exams until they get a pass.
EBaccs Partial resits will end. Pupils will be forced to resit the entire exam.

GCSEs The final exam can be as short as 90 minutes
EBaccs Exams will be much longer, possibly three hours

GCSEs Maths exams have little algebra, English exams include ‘bite sized’ replies and rigorous English-to-foreign-language translations are rare.
EBaccs More algebra in maths exams, more full length essays in English and a return to full English-to-foreign-language translation tests.

GCSEs Up to 50 per cent of exams are studied via modules and continual assessment.
EBaccs Replaced by one or two tougher exams at end of two-year course.

GCSEs Technically, everyone who gets a grade from A to G grade is deemed to have achieved a ‘pass’.
EBaccs New 1 to 6 pass grade, 7 onwards will be fail.

GCSEs 22 per cent get A or A* grade. Around seven per cent of all candidates gain an A*.
EBaccs As few as five per cent may get the top Grade 1.

VIDEO: Michael Gove announces the move to EBaccs

The comments below have been moderated in advance.

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You make the exams harder, so what? All you are doing is creating an educational elite that will have a monopoly over the best university places and sixth form colleges. The vast, vast majority of underachievers, in this current GCSE system, are underachieving because of teaching, cultural capital, and their economic status – and now as a result of this new reform will suffer even more.
– myalansky , London, United Kingdom, 18/9/2012 01:31————————————————————–The whole point of exams IS to create an educated elite – sort the wheat from the chaff – that’s the point of exams. When I left 6th form 5% went to Uni (of which I was not) and this was easily funded by grants – the reason as a country we can’t fund universities and term fees are so expensive is that too many people are going that are of average ability. People that can’t spell, punctuate or count are coming out with Masters. that can’t be right.

–

sover99
,

Swansea, United Kingdom,
18/9/2012 02:02

Even though I agree with this policy, it won’t happen. Gove has failed to deliver anything he’s announced, and has U-turned on every single initiative coming from his Department.

–

General Monck
,

Portsmouth, United Kingdom,
18/9/2012 01:56

Poor kids. Yet again politics are going to bring chaos to their lives. Governments, for everybodys sake, please stop meddlling in things you know absolutely nothing about. Let teachers teach. Let police police. Let soldiers soldier and let nurses nurse. Nobody in any of the aforementioned professions tell government how to govern. Thats because they wouldn’t have a clue what they were talking about. Stick to what you do well, claiming expenses and dreaming up new and novel ways of further taxing working people. Rant over.

–

josielady
,

liverpool,
18/9/2012 01:48

I did my GCSEs at the end of the last decade; and my English exams were not “bitesized” at all.. I had to write four long essays, i remember one was on Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. Not to mention my sixteen page RE essay. They may be getting easier, but I’m not sure where the bite sized thing comes from. Certainly not my old school.

– NotMyGCSEs, UK, 17/9/2012 9:30

Although i enjoyed reading Of mice and men, when i was doing mind exams, it was on J R R Tolkien, Lord of the rings, i think that is the difference over the years, they have been getting easier and easier. Therefore i think that more emphasis should be put on the teachers and teaching, rather than, the exams.!!!

–

Boss
,

Burnley Lancashire,
18/9/2012 01:43

You make the exams harder, so what? All you are doing is creating an educational elite that will have a monopoly over the best university places and sixth form colleges. The vast, vast majority of underachievers, in this current GCSE system, are underachieving because of teaching, cultural capital, and their economic status – and now as a result of this new reform will suffer even more.

–

myalansky
,

London, United Kingdom,
18/9/2012 01:31

Plebeian, you have nailed it. Well done. Welcome to the real world of global competition.——Well done Gove. Perhaps in 15years time the UK will be up to the standards of Korea, China etc. Then our children can compete for jobs.- jillday, Brighton, 17/9/2012 18:15—————- Would that be the 3 million jobs just waiting for the “right” education. Is that why we have unemployment because people don’t have the “right” education, funny that because logic would dictate a lack of millions of paying jobs.
– Plebeian, Plebsville, United Kingdom,

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jillday
,

Brighton,
18/9/2012 01:19

This will expose the teachers who underperform (I am not anti teachers) and hopefully those secret seminars where teachers were told what their students could expect on their exams. Let’s get back to all round good study and knowledge.

–

CJ
,

Bolton,
18/9/2012 01:14

Children learn more by doing course work, in my opinion, it might give the youngsters a better chance of a good grade as some children are not very good taking exams. I had a panic attack in my art exam and walked out. If I was judged on my course work too I might have been a happy bunny. What about Life skills, money management, child care, first aid, gardening, woodwork, cooking. plumbing? Subjects that would be useful in the REAL world. Our children would be better off and given hope of understanding the world we live in.

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millie
,

uk,
18/9/2012 01:13

My secondary education was in a grammar school in the 1960s. I passed 7 O levels but wasn’t considered good enough for university.. I drive a Porsche, my son is a partner with a major law firm, my daughter is currently taking her Masters in business law, I’m a senior officer with a major offshore diving company.
My father was a deep sea fisherman and I grew up in the 1950s when poverty and rationing were still the order of the day. Education is the greatest gift that a child can receive. We should ensure that our children embrace this principle with the same enthusiasm as the children of India, China and the far east or we are consigned to a backwater of history.

–

Paul
,

Grimsby, United Kingdom,
18/9/2012 01:11

I 100% agree with the direction. The only issue would be, do we have the right people with the ability and skill set in place to teach these subjects?

–

Rounddav
,

Bangkok,
18/9/2012 01:08

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