It has been announced that student numbers for the new diplomas are to be cut by a quarter http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,2274658,00.html embarrassingly it has been leaked that Ministers and education experts in Whitehall would not recommend studying the new diplomas to their own children http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/20/nedu120.xml This comes at a time when a government committee is asking what the future is for A levels? http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7397084.stm It also comes at a time when the pre-U is coming into use at private schools http://education.guardian.co.uk/alevels/story/0,,2273115,00.html Overall, this is an interesting time for post 16 qualifications. We seem to be at a point where we are either on the eve of the establishment of a single system of post 16 qualifications after the phasing out of A levels in 2013. Or, we are seeing the establishment of the most divisive system we have ever had in the UK, where qualifications will reflect the social class of the student and the type of school attended. In this latter scenario, diplomas will identify students as being lower class and having attended a poorer performing comprehensive school; A levels will indicate middle class students who attended a superior state school; while private schools students will study the pre-U.
This in turn will then no doubt be reflected in higher education, with private schools consolidating their grip on the Russell group universities who will give preference to the pre-U students; A levels will be the qualification of choice for the other older universities; while diplomas will get you into an old polytechnic. The result will be that social mobility in the UK will diminish and the introduction of diplomas will have achieved the exact opposite of its originator’s intension. I think both scenarios are possible, what’s your bet?
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