How A levels got in a mess

How A levels got in a mess

- Curriculum 2000 aimed at widening and broadening A levels to gain access under the then Labour Government. - Increase in the modular AS Levels and retakes .The modular approach in the 00s came to devaluing of the Gold Standard of the A level.

The A* A level was produced. - Gove the Education minister in 2011 at the time finally put a stop to this and removed some A level resits and increased terminal, linear exams along with the three subjects only. - The rise of unconditional offers by universities to circumvent increase in A level difficulty and improve competitiveness for applicants to their courses. - In 2019, 38% of all offers made through UCAS took this form up from nearly nothing 5 years ago. Desperate growth of the need for universities to fill their spaces. A level performance of the pupil become less significant than the predicted A level grades that the schools put on the pupils UCAS form. - This lead to the fast decline of Modern Language A levels as a choice. Gender gap in STEM subjects Student drop out at universities - Proposal for banning un conditional offers. - The scene is set for a disruption in University admissions

Why does any of this matter: David Willetts a former minister in the coalition of 2011 quotes A University Education: ‘English universities have a particularly powerful influence over what is taught and how in schools…. Our secondary schools do not aim for the breadth of knowledge which you need to be an effective well-educated citizen. Their purpose is success in the competition for university entry’ The A level system is increasingly going to narrow as final exams become more important. The result is pupils will want to select naturally subjects that have a narrative and support Especially online through free online videos. Just as Jordan Peterson suggests.

Humanity subjects at A level fall into this category. Reducing the incentive for STEM pupils at A levels. Maybe this is the price to pay to improve the integrity of A levels? David Willetts, Andreas Schleicher, the senior educational figure at the OECD along with Steven Pinker in Enlightenment Now. The President of the Royal Society, Sir Venki Ramakrishnan, thinks so, too:‘The UK risks falling behind its global competitors as a result of maintaining a narrow, outdated model of post-16 education… Our narrow education system, which encourages early specialisation, is no longer fit for purpose in an increasingly interdisciplinary world’.