Hard lessons

George Tomlinson, the post-war education secretary, declared that politicians should leave exams to the teachers because ‘the minister knows nowt about curriculum’. Today, however, the curriculum seems to be in a state of permanent revolution. The new GCSEs, for example, are marked on a nine-point scale: a grade of 7 or above indicates what used to be an ‘A’. For every five students who hit the 7 threshold, only one will get 9, the top mark. How employers are meant to understand this is another question.

The GCSE overhaul is the latest of a series of reforms, started by Michael Gove seven years ago, which are intended to ‘restore confidence’ after years of grade inflation. During the Labour years, ministers denied that exams were getting easier. They insisted that the proportion of As had risen over the years because the quality of education had improved. If that were true, Britain would not now be the only country in the developed world where numeracy among 16-24-year-olds is lower than it is for 55-65-year-olds.

The cost of educational failure can be seen all around. A recent survey asked adults what, if a worker on £9 an hour was given a 5 per cent pay rise, his new salary would be. Almost a quarter were unable to answer, even with the help of a calculator. Another government survey found that only a quarter of adults would pass GCSE maths, and barely half would pass GCSE English with grade C or above.

The problem is, at its root, political: too much of the debate in Westminster revolves around who gets into Oxbridge. It is the great English disease: an elitist obsession with elite (especially private) education, which results in a deficit of government interest in every-thing else.