The owner of a leading UK exam board has launched a consultation on a major “rethink” of 14-19 qualifications in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
Pearson, owner of Edexcel, wants teachers, students, experts and MPs to explore the future of GCSEs and wider issues around the assessment of students aged 14 to 19.
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The consultation will run from 15 February until 31 March and will draw on a panel of education experts and external research partners, culminating in a final report in the autumn. An interim report with a series of recommendations is expected in May.
The expert panel includes three former education secretaries - Lord Blunkett, Damian Hinds and Baroness Morris - as well as Sir Michael Wilshaw, a former Ofsted chief inspector.
Rod Bristow, Pearson’s UK president, said: “For the second year running, Covid-19 will force us all to adapt and rethink how we both educate and assess our young people.
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“While we work with the government, schools and colleges and other exam boards to make sure the system delivers for learners in 2021, we also have a responsibility to look further ahead and use this unique moment to consider all of the issues.
“So far, public debate is focusing narrowly on whether GCSEs should be scrapped but we recognisethat GCSEs are just one stage in the age 14 to 19 journey.
“Coherence across all stages of education is essential and, Covid aside, we need to ensure what young people learn, how they learn it and how it is assessed is fit for the 21st century.”
The consultation will consider the shifting requirements of digital education, issues of fairness and trust in order to maintain public confidence in qualifications, and the role 14-19 education should play in “helping to develop confident and well-rounded learners and supporting their life aspirations”.
The survey asks respondents to describe how important they think qualifications taken at key stage 4 and 5 should be in preparing students with skills they will need in their future careers.
And it asks how effective formal exams taken more frequently throughout a course would be as a form of assessment, compared with final exams and mocks.
There are growing calls for GCSEs to be reconsidered following the pandemic.
In September 2020, a coalition of national experts, including Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, branded GCSEs a “national disgrace” and called for them to be scrapped.
And in November, Dame Alison Peacock, chief executive of the Chartered College of Teaching - who will also sit on Pearson’s expert panel - said the debacle over exam results in 2020 had revealed “how flawed our assessment system is”.
However, the exam board Cambridge Assessment has previously hit back at the idea of abolishing GCSEs, arguing that they give teachers “a focus” and help to provide clarity for students.
