This week marked the beginning of exam season in colleges and schools, with students sitting what the Department for Education describes as “new, more rigorous GCSE exams” in 20 subjects. School standards minister Nick Gibb says that these “more rigorous, gold-standard GCSEs are helping to nurture the next generation of scientists, linguists and historians”.
And yet the way the new qualifications have been introduced is anything but nurturing. The DfE claims the exams are “on a par with the best-performing education systems in the world”, but their bungled introduction has caused confusion for students, employers and parents alike. The embarrassing climb-down from the original plan to set the “good” pass mark at a grade 5 - disguised through the muddled introduction of “strong” and “standard” passes at grades 5 and 4 respectively - did little to boost confidence.
Students left ‘heartbroken’
Whatever your views on compulsory English and maths GCSE resits, the DfE’s failure to address the burden that the policy places on colleges is nothing short of a scandal. And it’s not just cash-strapped institutions that suffer in coping with ever-larger resit cohorts with no additional funding; the learners pay the heaviest price. As Gabrielle, a student at Greater Brighton Metropolitan College (GBMC), put it after missing out on the grade she wanted: “I was heartbroken. I didn’t know what to do.”
With colleges facing rising numbers of demoralised students, many are doing fantastic work to boost the confidence and skills of their learners. GBMC has teamed up with the YMCA in a campaign to support students struggling with exam stress (bit.ly/CollStress).
We all want our education system to be on a par with the powerhouses of global education. But new qualifications are not enough. If the government is going to persist with GCSE resits to boost literacy and numeracy standards, then it has to stump up the funding needed to give colleges and their students a fighting chance of achieving the qualifications.
Stephen Exley is Tes’ FE editor
@stephenexley
