Fourteen years after GCSE began, the jury is still out. Detractors say it is irrelevant now, while supporters point to the growing numbers of pupils achieving top grades - 58 per cent compared with 34.5 per cent in 1990. Created to end the appalling under-achievement of school-leavers, GCSE has ensured that the vast majority of 16-year-olds now have a broad curriculum and something to show for 11 years at school.
Only 5 per cent emerge with no qualifications today, compared with almost 10 per cent previously. The fly in the ointment is that almost half of pupils still do not achieve a grade C or above in maths and science, and about 40 per cent fail to clear the grade C hurdle in English.
The Confederation of British Industry laments the lack of improvement in these subjects and calls for the Government to raise its targets. By 2006, it believes, grade Cs should be attained by three-quarters of pupilsin English and by two-thirds in maths.
The growing gulf between girls’ and boys’ performance is also causing anxiety. The gap in the top grades widened to 9 percentage points this year, but in English it is now a yawning 15. Sceptics complain there was no similar outcry when boys were leading girls in maths and science at O-level.
Critics are now beginning to question GCSE’s future. The National Association of Head Teachers says that there is no point in having three exams between 15 and 18 if most pupils stay on beyond 16. Others argue that you need a good national exam to mark the end of compulsory schooling.
“A large number of students are staying on, but for those who do leave, it is helpful for employers to see a record of what they have done,” said Bridget Patterson, head of sixth-form guidance at Northgate high school, Ipswich.
Professor Alan Smithers of Liverpool University is not a fan, but he believes the end of a national exam at 16 could herald the raising of the school-leaving age, a disastrous idea, he thinks, with truancy rates soaring.
It does not cater for pupils at either end of the academic spectrum, he says. “It is not challenging enough for pupils at the top end, who are hoovering up GCSEs like Boy Scout badges. At the bottom, what is in it for those getting two Es or two Fs? Truanting is a logical response.”
Professor Smithers thinks that a more intellectually challenging GCSE could provide an adequate route to A-levels and university, but pupils wanting to start work need a better qualifications ladder. Employers should help the Government to devise it. “Employers are a disgrace. Instead of muttering about declining literacy and numeracy, they should say what qualifications they want and help to develop them.”
There is a problem with the format of new vocational GCSE courses, which started this term. With two-thirds coursework, it is often too demanding for the students who want to do it, says Bridget Patterson. They frequently lack the organisational skills to complete projects, meet deadlines and present the results in portfolios.
The Government has been forced to reprieve the intermediate General National Vocational Qualification (GNVQ), which Professor Smithers has described as “a way of occupying the less brainy without any regard to employers”. One reason for the GNVQ’s popularity - entries were up by a third this year - is that it helps schools boost their results. An intermediate GNVQ pass is worth four Cs at GCSE; the new vocational GCSE is only worth two academic GCSEs.
GNVQ’s main defence is that it enables weaker students to achieve for the first time, says Martin Lang, vice-principal of Djanogly City Technology College in Nottingham. “Anyone who has taught a GNVQ or seen the quality of the portfolios produced would understand that it is not an easy option.”
David Miliband, the schools minister, has already indicated that the proposed secondary reforms, due this month, will give priority to changing the 14 to 16 curriculum . If it is to survive, GCSE will have to prove that it still has a role to play in boosting the numbers of pupils staying on beyond 16.
