[AdamskiUK]

So recently, The Times uncovered that Michael Gove (the minister of education for the current UK government) intends to scrap the standard GCSE course. There has been outcry by the Left and the supporting unions of the Labour party, who are saying that a return to O-Level qualifications means a return to having a CSE qualification. Before the Tories introduced GCSEs, CSEs existed as a form of lesser O-Level. For instance, if you got a Level 1 (Distinction) grade in your CSE, you had the equivalent of a C in the same subject at O-Level.

Generally, CSEs were very poorly regarded in terms of employment. However, they were the qualifications the masses could attain, so they were needed nonetheless. In my opinion, the Unions who strongly protest against a two-tier system have *clearly* forgotten about the difference between Higher and Foundation papers. In GCSE currently, getting the highest mark in a Foundation paper will give you a C at GCSE. Is this not the same as what we could make the CSE anyway?

Indeed, it would mean an increase of difficultly of both the 'Foundation' (CSE-New) and 'Higher' (O-Level - New), but with the UK falling behind in World education tables, is this not a positive step? The example used in the Media is Singapore. Their students can currently sit an O-Level exam at aged 16 (or younger) that is designed by Cambridge. The course material that is covered reaches well into our A-Level courses for Sciences and Maths which puts the UK in poor stead when trying to compete on the global market.

I suppose you could say that I'm only saying this because I've sat my GCSEs and that this won't have an effect on me. I find this to be a poor argument as if GCSEs change, then A-Levels will, too. I'm about to enter my first year of 6th Form, so again, if these changes take place when they're meant to (2013/2014), my curriculum will be left unchanged. However, I find that improving the British workforce's knowledge to be a *good idea*. Making them learn what our parents could do 30 years ago is a *good idea*. There is the problem that this route will reduce those who work in vocational courses. I am against this, as not everyone should go to University. We still need labourers and manufacturers to create wealth in our society. This must be accounted for in Gove's changes.

What concerns me most is the fact that I am indeed a candidate who will not have been through these new qualifications. What does it mean for me?

For starters, will my GCSEs pale in comparison to those who have done the harder exams? Will they become more employable? The same goes for when A-Levels inevitably become harder. Are their grade As or Bs going to be worth more than mine? If that's the case, then a whole restructuring will take place, and people like me who have worked hard at what we've been set will be displaced in the employment system. This must, again, be accounted for. I think that this will be minimised because the changes will happen at A-Level very gradually. Hopefully, even with the very gradual shift, the government can produce a scheme of work that I can complete to bring my knowledge up to the standards they expect.

These are just my thoughts, and I hope you forgive me for putting them in a new post, but I'd rather hear your thoughts than lose all of ours in a drowning sea of arguments in the other threads. To make things clear, I support Gove, but he must be careful. What I want to ask you here is what do you think about how the value of our grades will be affected. I also want to know if you support Gove or not, and why/why not?

[cacatron]

I think that in the end most employers look to your high school grades last after your degree, i doubt degree programs will change much even with this change so even if you did the curent GCSE/A levels if you then got a first in your degree you would be just as employable as someone who did the O level and got a first

[pop101]

Basically the conservative MP who decided to this is basically telling us that in the future, our GCSEs will not be regarded as highly compared to the new O-levels.

He is basically trying to make us (the nation) compete with the likes of Singapore (as he said in the House of Commons) as he strongly believes that we are far behind - which some may people agree on. What he has said also implies that our GCSEs are under rated - GCSE style exams will be done by less able students.

[A.J10]

Haven't read up on this properly, but for what it's worth here's my opinion.

First off I hate the notion of "exams being easier" covering the whole rise in grades. Some of it may be down to that, but I doubt it's that much. Part of it is going to be down to better resources (such as the internet) and, more importantly, people caring about them more.
Nowadays you need GCSEs to work in McDonalds for crying out loud. I know it's just a token show on their part, but when even job that is the warning to kids ("Do you want to end up working in McDonalds?") requires exams people are going to start paying more attention. People need to be more highly qualified for the same jobs, so they're putting more effort in.
Additionally the format in which the exams are taken (modular, with room for resits) does cause grade inflation, but not because the exams themselves are "easier".

Also, why return to CSE and O-level? As OP mentioned, the difference is encompassed in the foundation/higher papers, and it seems simpler to have 1 qualification and a wider array of grades to simplify things. Seems to me like the government are doing this more to gain good publicity than to actually improve the nation by appealing to the idea that everything was better, yet at the same time harder, "when I was a lad". I hate the idea that anyone is fiddling with education in order to score some publicity points.

tl;dr: This seems more like a political move than an actual move to improve our educational system. People need to be more highly qualified for the same jobs, so they're putting more effort in.

[lottie9394]

i agree i do worry that the hard work that we out into our gcses will be for nothing and wont mean anything !

[Annie72]

I remember the Government back in the day bringing GCSE's in!.I dont know why it needs to change in all honesty.

[Radradrad]

As someone who considers themselves on the Left as OP pointed out and as someone who if I was born later would have been directly effected by these changes in a negative way my main issue with the new proposals is that, as most critics say, it creates two tiers of education.

This on its own is not a disaster and has clear benefits to those most advanced. The problem is those who defend Gove's reforms say that those who do not go down the academic route at first can go back to it later, there is an implied sense that these reforms will be flexible.

However, with the massive cuts and almost clear destruction of academic education at further education colleges, the only place for those who do not get qualifications first time to try and get them later, this clearly isn't true. In this sense the whole idea of being written off at 14 is a very real one, however it currently is a very real one at 16 due to New Labour reforms anyway.

I also have a lot of time for the idea which I suppose would be considered more hard-left that "vocational" courses which do not require a level three qualification, such as hair dressing or social care, whilst essential are very low paid. It is quite easy to be cynical about these courses as a way of keeping the working classes and those less able "in their place", particularly when you consider the specialism of these courses cuts out the ability to move careers and through going on the courses gets rid of quite a lot of the entitlements from the state towards education.

What we need is a new approach to education which involves a commitment to lifelong learning which is cheap, or ideally free, and create a new culture based around learning and improving your skills and trying to remove the stigma of some groups towards education and the "you educate them you lose them" mentality. Lack of education just invites welfare dependency or welfare contributions to some extent, over 85% of those on housing benefit work, so it is not in the interests of the government to make these changes apart from on the grounds of ideology.

I wrote about this more extensively on my blog with lots more stats, logic and hyperbole at supermarkettabloids.tumblr.com

[AdamskiUK]

(Original post by Annie72)
I remember the Government back in the day bringing GCSE's in!.I dont know why it needs to change in all honesty.

Haha, a while back now

Whilst I value your opinion, have you honestly seen some of the questions on GCSE papers these past two years? I saw a foundation question and it went along the lines of 'Write out 43,768 in words', for 2/70 marks! If you look at O-Level papers you can see that have been written by Cambridge, these kinds of things are meant to be known alongside your Name, not as part of your course.

[kiss_me_now9]

(Original post by AdamskiUK)
Haha, a while back now

Whilst I value your opinion, have you honestly seen some of the questions on GCSE papers these past two years? I saw a foundation question and it went along the lines of 'Write out 43,768 in words', for 2/70 marks! If you look at O-Level papers you can see that have been written by Cambridge, these kinds of things are meant to be known alongside your Name, not as part of your course.

Surely that's an indication that there are people in the country who need extra help they are not getting rather than that the entire exam structure is flawed? Just overhaul how the exams are graded or the difficulty level, no need to switch back and forth between different names.

[jwf13]

(Original post by AdamskiUK)

In my opinion, the Unions who strongly protest against a two-tier system have *clearly* forgotten about the difference between Higher and Foundation papers. In GCSE currently, getting the highest mark in a Foundation paper will give you a C at GCSE. Is this not the same as what we could make the CSE anyway?

Well, no, because the GCSE foundation is decided by your teacher before you sit the exam, so if you get a D or E in the mock, then your teacher will enter you for foundation. However, with a two tier system, then your fate will be decided before you start the course, which is unfair, as people who are predicted to get less than a C can improve. So in GCSEs, you will have the chance to prove yourself before people start capping your grades, whereas for a two tier system you don't have a chance to prove themselves (i.e- if you got a grade 1 CSE, it means you could have coped with the O-Level course, but never had the chance to show you could've done better.)

[AdamskiUK]

(Original post by kiss_me_now9)
Surely that's an indication that there are people in the country who need extra help they are not getting rather than that the entire exam structure is flawed? Just overhaul how the exams are graded or the difficulty level, no need to switch back and forth between different names.

The point of changing the exams is to provide a way of scrapping the National Curriculum. That will allow schools to teach freely how they wish to, without the restraints that have slowly dropped the British education system into the state it is now. As far as Academies have proved, this improves how well children are educated meaning these people will get more help.

I don't think a change of name means anything. He hasn't officially called them the O-Levels, that's just something the media has portrayed his ideas as. By changing the exam structure, you'll have the curriculum changed at the same time. If lesser students can't get the grades that they want, in this scenario, it would be tough. It's not as if craftsmen and tradesmen aren't valuable. There are too few in Britain.

The thing is, we've overhauled the exam structure so much that all that's happened is it's been dumbed down. Our parents could do that like the Cambridge O-Level papers asked them to do at CSE level, but we've slowly inflated the boundaries to get high grades. When papers are marked, the examiners say 'Okay, 10% of this year's candidates must have an A*' and that's how boundaries are set. Instead of saying 'The ones who work hard and get *this* mark are the ones who get good grades', they say 'The ones who do as well as everybody else get good grades'.

Summary: Changing the paper will change how it's taught to help weaker students.

[A.J10]

(Original post by AdamskiUK)
Haha, a while back now

Whilst I value your opinion, have you honestly seen some of the questions on GCSE papers these past two years? I saw a foundation question and it went along the lines of 'Write out 43,768 in words', for 2/70 marks! If you look at O-Level papers you can see that have been written by Cambridge, these kinds of things are meant to be known alongside your Name, not as part of your course.

First of all, comparing a foundaton paper to an o-level is unfair. You should compare it to a CSE paper, as they are the equivalent.

As for foundation maths, yes the first couple of questions are easy, but they're gonna get harder. That would have been the easiest question on the paper.

And saying that they're written by cambridge means sweet F all. OCR stand for Oxford, Cambridge and RSA, and no matter who the paper is written by, it has to be of the difficulty manageable by someone at the GCSE level of understanding. I could get Stephen Hawking to team up with Richard Dawkins and Neil deGrasse Tyson to write a science paper, but it still wouldn't be harder than the edexcel paper because it's a GCSE paper

[Bettypratchit]

So I'm confused slightly, does the new system mean that at secondary school and at college I completely wasted my time studying and then getting my GCSE and A-Level qualifications? Basically will my grades if this system is put in place mean they won't have the same level equilvalent in the new system, but the equivalent will be lesser?

[AspiringGenius]

(Original post by AdamskiUK)
Haha, a while back now

Whilst I value your opinion, have you honestly seen some of the questions on GCSE papers these past two years? I saw a foundation question and it went along the lines of 'Write out 43,768 in words', for 2/70 marks! If you look at O-Level papers you can see that have been written by Cambridge, these kinds of things are meant to be known alongside your Name, not as part of your course.

Yes but that is a foundation paper which covers grades C-G. That question is obviously an F/G grade question and that level wouldn't appear in the old O level paper, it would be in the CSE.

If you are going to compare O Levels and GCSE, use higher tier GCSE only.

[AdamskiUK]

(Original post by jwf13)
Well, no, because the GCSE foundation is decided by your teacher before you sit the exam, so if you get a D or E in the mock, then your teacher will enter you for foundation. However, with a two tier system, then your fate will be decided before you start the course, which is unfair, as people who are predicted to get less than a C can improve. So in GCSEs, you will have the chance to prove yourself before people start capping your grades, whereas for a two tier system you don't have a chance to prove themselves (i.e- if you got a grade 1 CSE, it means you could have coped with the O-Level course, but never had the chance to show you could've done better.)

I see. Fair point. Surely you can decide what kind of candidate you are by the end of Year 9 though? It will instil the idea that you have to work hard in the first 3 years. If people don't realise that, then that shouldn't be at the expense of all the other top-quality students who don't get the education that other country's children get.

[akipid]

I feel sooooo annoyed about this. I do wonder as well, what will happen to us, who have done/are doing GCSEs? It feels like all the hard work i'm putting in isn't being valued and will never be valued. Eurgh.

[Radradrad]

(Original post by AdamskiUK)
As far as Academies have proved, this improves how well children are educated meaning these people will get more help.

Summary: Changing the paper will change how it's taught to help weaker students.

Your first point on how amazing academies have proved to be - From New Statesman

Yet a recent analysis of Department for Education figures by the Local Schools Network pressure group showed how 60 per cent of pupils in non-academy schools attained five A* to C-grade GCSEs in 2011, compared to just 47 per cent in the (then) 249 sponsored academies.
http://www.newstatesman.com/educatio...ools-academies

Your final point -

As I pointed out in my earlier post these reforms will not help weaker students it will destroy their chances of an academic education, throughout their WHOLE life, and jeopardise a great deal of their earning potential, those with academic qualifications earn about 50% more hourly than those with non-academic.

As to your comments about the curriculum you are aware that by removing the national curriculum faith schools are able to teach whatever they want concerning issues such as science, religion and sex education.

[AdamskiUK]

(Original post by Bettypratchit)
So I'm confused slightly, does the new system mean that at secondary school and at college I completely wasted my time studying and then getting my GCSE and A-Level qualifications? Basically will my grades if this system is put in place mean they won't have the same level equilvalent in the new system, but the equivalent will be lesser?

That's what I'm thinking. As some poster said, it will probably not impact your chances of employment, but your GCSE will most likely be worth less compared to an O-Level.

[AishaTara]

(Original post by akipid)
I feel sooooo annoyed about this. I do wonder as well, what will happen to us, who have done/are doing GCSEs? It feels like all the hard work i'm putting in isn't being valued and will never be valued. Eurgh.

well it won't be too much of a difference to us (gcse holders) though. When we apply to uni for instance everyone in our age bracket will have GCSES, secondly with jobs, when applying for your first job-the students who would have done o-levels will be at Uni studying or jumping into work (without a degree) so you'll be competing with people without a degree or with gcses/alevels of the same level. GCSEs won't hold you back forever- especially not when you have higher qualifications, a job, experience etc
people will mostly look at your degree and experience in general so it won't put you at a disadvantage tbh

[jwf13]

(Original post by AdamskiUK)
I see. Fair point. Surely you can decide what kind of candidate you are by the end of Year 9 though? It will instil the idea that you have to work hard in the first 3 years. If people don't realise that, then that shouldn't be at the expense of all the other top-quality students who don't get the education that other country's children get.

I agree that it's a good way to get people to work hard for KS3, but I know people that did a lot worse than they should have in Year 9 exams (just had a bad day). This means they could get put in a CSE set, whereas with GCSEs they can change after the first set of exams to the paper.

I think the best way to do it would be to have O-Levels and CSEs to cover the same material at the start of the course, (e.g, all the work would be roughly grade C/D), and if someone shows they can do better, then they get moved up. There's really no perfect way of doing it in my opinion.