Return of the 'O' level

GCSEs are to be scrapped and new, more rigorous O-levels brought back in the most radical overhaul of the school exams system for 30 years.Education Secretary Michael Gove is set to abolish the national curriculum in English secondary schools, according to leaked documents.

http://news.sky.com/home/politics/article/16250644

About bloody time .My son has just completed his exams and i must say they are an absolute joke ,it is almost impossible to fail them he had one exam remarked untill he reached the required score for a pass

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-18529471

Sources have told the BBC that Mr Gove believes GCSEs "have gone beyond the point of rescue".

quite agree

[Graham M]

Good. It'll mean we get less people who are blatantly plain stupid holding important positions :p

[Hom3r]

Originally Posted by Graham M

Good. It'll mean we get less people who are blatantly plain stupid holding important positions :p

How many are in the cabinet

[BenMcr]

Originally Posted by heero_yuy

But I wonder how this will play in the "Everybody wins prizes" and "Nobody can be allowed to fail because it stigmatises them" culture that has grown up in our schools?

Just wait until someone sues or something because a school suggests their child takes the lower exam

Oh here we go again..another change that will take a lot of money to implement with great promises that it will bring back a golden age of education..

The only way to do that is to bring back the cane..Because that was what made my generation behave in class whilst we studied for O-levels.

[Osem]

There's no doubt in my mind that GCSE's are far too easy when compared to the old 'O' levels but I don't see why that problem can't be adequately addressed by simply raising the bar in terms of what's taught at GCSE level and the standards required to pass.

Originally Posted by Osem

There's no doubt in my mind that GCSE's are far too easy when compared to the old 'O' levels but I don't see why that problem can't be adequately addressed by simply raising the bar in terms of what's taught at GCSE level and the standards required to pass.

I agree, after all, what's in a name? What you call it irrelevant, it's the standard of tuition and difficulty of the subject matter that should be the deciding factors. I took O levels at school and years later was helping my Niece with her GCSE homework. I was appalled at the gulf between the two standards.

The REAL reasons education is failing is that there is a lack of discipline in the classroom and teacher morale is at an all time low with their status reduced year by year.All the solutions suggested are political party dogma inspired and are never supposed to be long term solutions because every 5 pigging years there is an election at which Education is kicked around as a political football.

Until Education is taken out of the political arena and dealt with by all parties concerned as an ONGOING cross party issue there is no way there will be any improvements that stick.

[tweetiepooh]

I took a mix of O and CSE and there was a difference between the two, not only in terms of content but form. The O''s were more essay based and the CSE's shorter answer forms. With CSE '1' being O equivalent it allowed people like me who struggled with essays (dyslexia and grapho-motor) to get the O's to to A's and on to university.

We need to start to raise the bar again and bring in differentiation even at higher levels so our qualifications mean something internationally rather than trying to climb the silly percentage of people with degree's tree.

We also need more vocational education,then we wouldn't have to import people with specific skills..

[Alan Fry]

This a good thing, but will they bring back the 11+?

(What we also need is investment in education, both higer and lower, but thats another topic)

[BenMcr]

Ooops

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/...ve-scrap-gcses

Nick Clegg vows to block Michael Gove's plan to scrap GCSEs
A furious deputy PM, who was not consulted on the reforms, has made clear that he will reject the plans out of hand

Originally Posted by BenMcr

Ooops

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/...ve-scrap-gcses

So, no change there then. Is Clegg clinically insane? Education in this country has been deteriorating for decades to the point that school leavers are semi illiterate and innumerate. Nevertheless the likes of Clegg seek to ensure that the decline is perpetuated and quite possibly furthered. I despair for the future of generations to follow. Utterly bemused

With all due respect bringing back the O-level is just a sticking plaster,pull in the votes,tinkering with the system kind of suggestion that ultimately cannot fix the education system..Only a complete overhaul will do that after a long,hard and considered consultation(cross party) which ultimately would be considered to be far too expensive to even contemplate.

Doesn't matter which government is in control they all come up with ways that are designed to gain politically without actually really making state education any better.

[cookie_365]

O levels were dreadful qualfications. They tested nothing of any value. All they tested was your ability to regurgitate a fairly predictable set of key facts.

Good at problem solving? Good at working together in a group? Good at doing stuff (instead of knowing stuff)? Good at finding stuff out rather than memorising a tiny proportion of it? Good at applying what you've learned to real life scenarios?

If you answered 'yes' to any of these - well, no-one would ever know if you took O levels. Because they measured none of the above.

If you think about the skills you need to get through life and perform jobs in 2012 Britain, then O levels are about as far away as those skills as you can get.

Believe me, I was one of the last group in the UK to take them. I very quickly learned that I didn't need to do any work whatsoever for three years. I just memorised a small number of key points, regurgitated them into essays, and got good results.