Here's a good article on it:
http://www.independent.co.uk/student/news/alevel-reforms-will-reduce-access-say-vicechancellors-8755928.html?origin=internalSearchParticularly;
"AS-levels ensure increased breadth post-16 and help students defer choices until they have a better grasp of subjects beyond GCSE."
"The proposed reforms are in our view detrimental to widening participation and fair admissions. The reforms will hamper transitions, deprive students of choice and flexibility and force them to commit to subjects which they may find entirely unsuitable as they mature academically and make choices about their future."The point is the reforms would altogether eradicate AS Levels, which are used to ease the transition from GCSEs. They generally are more likely to benefit kids who have came from the 'worse' state schools because it is those kids that are less likely to be 'academic.' Oxbridge even agree.
My point of view is this; these reforms would only increase the system's dependency on examinations/standardised testing by weighing everything on those end of 2 year exams. It has been seen that state school kids do better with coursework than exams, and exams only really test the ability to time-keep and write fast, long essays etc, which anyway doesn't actually test true potential or employability at all.
I agree A-Levels need reforms, but I'd argue they need to be
less standardised (and less reliant on mark schemes), not
more as Gove insists. The only time during my A-Levels that I truly felt my true potential was being tested was when I a) wasn't rushed for time with my essays, and b) was doing the coursework for Lit and History. The same may not be right for the sciences or maths, but it's hard to argue examinations are really the best measurement of a child's intelligence. It's more so a measurement of how much aid they have been given in their time at school to be trained to perform well in such circumstances.
And lest we forget Gove is the most privileged and elite, indifferent prick to ever tread the Earth.