Exams good enough for the rich are good enough for the poor too

Tuesday, 14th April 2009

Here's an interesting - and, for once, encouraging - development. Motherwell College (soon to be moving to a new campus on the site of the old Ravenscraig steel mill) is going to offer students the chance to study for the International Baccalaureate, rather than Scottish Highers. That's a small, but significant victory for school choice, as teenagers at high schools in Lanarkshire will now have the chance to apply for one of the places on an IB course that has, until now, only been available in the private sector in Scotland. (Indeed, fewer than 150 schools across Britain offer the IB at present, though that number will grow as A-Levels and Highers continue t lose their value.)

Most striking, however, were the comments from Motherwell College's Principal:

"If, as is very widely acknowledged, this is the best post-16 educational qualification available then why shouldn't kids in Motherwell, in other parts of North Lanarkshire and indeed beyond that, be able to access it?
"It's about making a programme, which historically in Scotland has only been open to private school pupils, available to all students on an open-access basis – ordinary kids."

And that, of course, is precisely the argument for school choice.

Though only 30 pupils will be admitted to the IB course each year this is still, symbolically as well as practically, an important step forward towards a more diverse educational system in which pupils and their parents are "empowered" at the expense of bureaucrats and politicians. The next step, of course, will be persuading teachers across Lanarkshire that they should embrace this opportunity and push those students most likely to benefit from the IB to consider taking it, not Highers. If that proves difficult or if teachers resist the IB then one would a) not be surprised and b) feel that the case for education reform was more compelling than ever.

Filed under: Education (319 more articles) , Scotland (456 more articles)

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dearieme

April 14th, 2009 7:08pm Report this comment

The IB will surely fit better to the Scottish custom of a broad education than to the English custom of a narrow one?

tommyt

April 15th, 2009 5:14am Report this comment

Good spot alex. I should say however that Motherwell College is an FE college not a school.

But I am absolutely delighted that the talented teenagers of Lanarkshire have the chance to get an IB.

It is time the world realised that a Lanarkshire education is a thing to behold.

Doug

April 15th, 2009 8:46am Report this comment

I'm not against the introduction of the IB but they're putting it in the wrong place. The IB isn't a replacement for the Higher. But it would make a good replacement for the advanced Higher or as it used to be called CSYS (certificate of sixth year studies). The Higher could be better but it is designed as a one year course as an incentive to further study (rather than South of the border compulsion) and to help 17 year olds enter the workplace with better and broader skill levels (than SCEs). Highers are not A-levels. Having gone through it and experienced the fruits of hiring its products I prefer the Scottish system and would rather concentrate on stiffening it up than throwing it overboard. One of the most important aspects of the Scottish system is that it is much more stable and has not been fiddled with every couple of years as they have been South of the border.

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