Gove to introduce baccalaureate for 16 year-olds

Michael

Let's see, they could call it the Certificate of Secondary Education, or maybe, the General Certificate of Education. Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.

Occasional Ostrich

Oh, dear!

This was the system, under the name "Senior Certificate" we retained in Northern Ireland until 1963. Thereafter, in the interest of 'conformity' (anybody yet spotting the shackling of free thought?) we were pressed to introduce the GCE (note the absence of the 'S'!) system. The two systems were run in parallel in 1963 and, guess what, for the first time we saw children passing GCE exams with 100% marks. To us, this was the first evidence of 'dumbing down', despite the expression not entering common usage for more than another two decades.

Incidentally, a Senior Certificate pass required a minimum of six subjects, which led to the anomaly of Northern Irish kids applying for apprenticeships with, effectively, six 'O' levels, when the actual minimum requirement was four 'O' levels.

So if young Gove can reinvent this particular wheel I simply have to say, "More power to his elbow!" But I fear he has picked the mother of all battles.

Reg511

And more importantly, understanding the link between Degree choice and career earning potential

Trumpeter Lanfried

Stand by for outrage from the NUT.

Beer Moth

"...specialisation at A-Level—one of the things that allows undergraduate education in this country to be far more intellectually rigorous than in the States..."

God help the States if their universities are less rigorous than ours. Turn up to all your lectures and parrot the required drivel in any of ours - barring Oxbridge and very few others - and someone will bung you a 2:2 at least.

Alongside all this stuff, still, despite all of Gove's proposals, if you don't want to go the HE route, if you're really keen to start working and to gain skills as an apprentice, then you're flotsam.

Bonzodog

Beer Moth

I assume that you did an arts degree for what you have said is patently not true in any of the "hard" sciences where an actual understanding and knowledge of the subject is still required wherever you study.

Red Rag

Funniest thing I have heard this parliamnet. "take up is well in excess of expectation". Three months ago 700 was the figure he quoted to be interested. 16 have actually gone through with it up to now. So he expected a take up of less than 2% of people who expressed an interest. Comical.

http://redrag1.blogspot.com/2010/09/red-rag-more-problems-with-figures-for.html

Tim W

I totally agree on your last point about A-Level subjects. You regularly read about how students are shocked they didn't get a place at University despite their straight A-grades. Then you read that they did them in Media Studies, Psychology, Computing and Sociology. In a way you feel sorry for the students as they weren't given the same advice as the student who got into University with four Bs in Maths, History, French and Chemistry.

I just hope this Baccaleareate isn't just change for change's sake. If it is still GCSEs then I don't really get it. Especially as the areas Gove talks of (Maths, English, Science, Language, Humanity) are at almost all schools currently compulsory. Also I am getting quite annoyed at the constant introduction of ideas which were never mentioned in any manifesto. By all means create new ideas when the old ones have run out but he had loads of ideas in the manifesto which he hasn't nearly finished implementing or even starting.

Beer Moth

Bonzodog

Point taken, I stand corrected. Apologies to all those who studied a proper subject. I should have restricted my comment to Arts, Humanities, all in that line. Three parts bullshit.

Laura Light

CHANGE - CHANGE - CHANGE
Billions spent by every new government, yet young people leave schools and university, totally unemployable, without the most basic skills ??

Cuffleyburgers

Why does this government continue the deporable habit of making policy announcements on TV and not to the house?

However welcome the announcement may be.

Richard Manns

Baccalaureates recognise subjects stopped before age 16, like (in my case) Music, Arts and Geography. That would be one difference between current and past systems, and the Baccalaureate.

@ Red Rag

Don't be thick. The Left did all it could to slow and block the Bill from a Government that only formed in May, and now you declare that 12 is a result of lack of interest, rather than a combination of your obstruction and the tiny time-frame. The question is, how many will be there in 2012? 2013? 2014? Will they be strong enough and popular enough to prevent Labour destroying them when they return to power?

@ Laura Light

Would that include the knowledge that there ought to be no space before an interrogation mark?