Michael Gove has just abandon plans to scrap GCSE and replace it with a universal Baccalaureate Certificate in English. The Tory Education Secretary beforehand to prevent the “dumbing down” of GCSEs with the focus all on board exams universal program that will manage all the examinations at the end of each course is 2 years. It also means that the importance of the course will be dropped. The proposed remedial education has been replaced by less radical changes to the league table and the introduction of the 5 subjects as “universal” – Michael Gove said that the universal courses to be taken by most students.
There is little information released by Gove mentioned changes to the course more practical. This leads me to worry about what the system will be held for non-academic students more.
There is growing opposition to the original plan Michael by teachers, exam boards and even the Liberal Democrats called the veto in Gove. In all this controversy, serious doubts emerged about the actual benefits of Gove’s planned reforms. Among Liberal Democrats, there are fears that these changes will bring back the two-tiered education system is seen when O levels still on the table. While I was pleased that the plan was canceled, I was worried about the future stability and the end of the British education system. Both students and parents have the right to have such a clear understanding of the system and how they benefit from the change. It becomes increasingly difficult for teachers to provide appropriate information in the GCSE system; confusion is likely to have a significant effect on student performance and guidance.
Rather than focussing on the individual education of students, schools seem to have a much greater focus on where they stand in the league tables. More often than not, this means that a schools position on the table may not be a good reflection of how well the children are being taught. In my opinion, there should be a greater emphasise on inspection boards such as Ofsted. Monitoring student activity and performance on the ground level is the best way of getting reflective results; it would give schools goals aligned with helping their students, rather than being at the top of the league table.
The UK education system doesn’t need massive reform as Michael Gove was proposing. It needs strength and focus. Students, teachers and parents should have full confidence in the system that they’re involved in, however at the moment – that confidence simply isn’t there. Instead of universalizing education, I think that the government should be enforcing more specific goals on individual schools. There are over 3400 (public) secondary schools in the United Kingdom, and each one of them has its own needs and focuses (this is more so with the introduction of academies); a new system needs to be dynamic to cater to each of these schools, instead of following the ‘one size fits all’ model that was being pushed by Mr Gove.