URGENT Education Committee want comments about 15-19 exams by 21 May

Janet Downs's picture
 3
The Education Select Committee is opening an inquiry into issues surrounding examinations from ages 15-19 including:

1The Government’s proposals for reform.

2The 2012 English GCSE results.

3The current plans for the administration and structure of the new GCSEs and A levels.

The Committee has asked for written submissions – no longer than two sides of A4.

Details about how to send submissions are here.

This will be a chance to let the Education Committee know your views. Commenting on the thread describing the Headteachers’ Roundtable proposal for an inclusive National Baccalaureate at age 18, FJM said it was perhaps time to “restrict public exams to the end of upper sixth [age 18]”.

This concurs with my view: English pupils are among the most-tested in the world. The OECD warned three years ago there was too much emphasis on test results in England and this risked negative consequences.

Most of the rest of the developed world have graduation at 18. It’s time England followed their lead. That will be my message to the Education Committee.

Thanks to Rebecca Hanson to drawing this to my attention.
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Comments

John Mountford's picture
Wed, 14/05/2014 - 19:02

Janet, let's be clear for a moment. Is this the same Education Select Committee that you reported, only yesterday, recently FAILED to entice or cajole Mr 'Shifty' to answer a simple question with an honest response???

".. even the Telegraph admitted:

‘The Education Secretary never strictly answered the key charge – that he’d diverted £400m from primary schools to fill a “black hole” in the funding of free schools – but his imperturbable aplomb saw him through."

While it is important that "The Education Select Committee is opening an inquiry into issues surrounding examinations from ages 15-19.." and "This will be a chance to let the Education Committee know your views." My first question is, does anyone out there in the big world of the bloggosphere really believe Mr 'Shifty' wants other people's views? There is even a chance that some of 'the blob' could offer their advice, giving the big man an even more solid reason for ignoring it.

Seriously, there is absolutely no reason to believe that, what should be an influential 'voice' in the parliamentary debate on education will impress Mr Gove. MP's are naive if they believe he will listen to anyone outside his circle of sad, fawning cronies.

It should not be this way. Mr Gove is sticking two fingers up to his colleagues on all sides. More worrying is the fact that the Conservative leadership is colluding in his bid to dismantle public education in order to replace it with an education market complete with the 'winners and losers' we have all, so it seems, come to accept. It is the best example anyone could possibly want to demonstrate that education governance and party politics is a toxic mix.

I have no doubt there will be passionate appeals from many commentators calling for a single graduation certificate at 18, spelling an end to the 'over-testing' we currently have.

agov's picture
Thu, 15/05/2014 - 08:04

To be slightly more clear, you are confusing questions in the Commons Chamber, including one from the MP who happens to be chair of the Education Select committee, with questions by and at a meeting of the Education Select committee.

Select committees were created to allow particular questions to be pursued in more depth than is generally likely to occur on the floor of the House.

None of the liblabcons care what anyone else thinks as they know best.

It's still worthwhile to go through the motions of following the normal processes. Until the country has finished falling to pieces.

Janet Downs's picture
Thu, 15/05/2014 - 08:13

John - it was the Chair of the all-party Select Committee who asked Gove to say categorically whether he had shifted money from one pot to another. It was hardly the Chair's fault that Gove ducked the question. The important thing was the question was posed by a Tory MP who understandably sounded exasperated because the accusation contradicted what Gove had told the Committee.

The Education Select Committee has criticised Gove's policies in the past. And, yes, he has ignored them. But that tells us more about Gove than it does about the Education Select Committee.

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