Tories pledge return to 'gold standard'

Last updated at 13:21 18 October 2004


Tory leader Michael Howard has pledged his party would return to the "gold standard" A-level, with a new top grade for the best students every year.

He said GCSEs would be retained too, with reform to make them "more rigorous and credible".

Mr Howard's plans were unveiled as the Government published the Tomlinson report which favoured two new over-arching diplomas to replace A-levels and GCSEs.

New top grade

The Tory leader, in a speech in Newcastle to the Society of Editors, said: "Today, there is widespread debate about exam standards. Some people think that exams have been dumbed down and downgraded. Others believe that pupils have become smarter and teachers better...

"The truth, of course, lies somewhere in between."

On A-levels, Mr Howard stressed: "A-levels remain the best means of testing students' academic knowledge and potential. A-levels should not therefore be abolished.

"Any new diploma must express clearly on the front the subjects and grades achieved at A-level.

"In addition we will introduce a new top grade for A-level which clearly identifies those who have achieved the best academic results.

"We also propose other changes which will reinforce the status and credibility of the A-level to ensure that it is recognised as the gold standard of the exam system that we wish it to be."

'More thorough and demanding'

To end the growth in the number of students gaining an A grade each year, which Mr Howard said hampered employers and colleges trying to find the brightest applicants, only a fixed proportion of students each year would be awarded the new highest A-level grade.

"This will clearly identify the students who have achieved the very best results of all those sitting the exam," he said.

He also promised the actual exam mark, as well as the grade, would be published, to allow a distinction to be drawn between students with similar grades.

A-levels would also be made "more thorough and demanding", with AS-levels scrapped and the exam returning to a two-year course.

In addition, students would not be able to take "multiple resits" of parts of their course.

The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority would be overhauled under the Tory plans, and kept under Government control.

Schools would also be able to allow their students to sit O-levels and the International Baccalaureate.

And GCSEs would be retained and strengthened and plans to allow internal exam assessments abolished - instead, an external regime would be made more rigorous.

"We will revalue our examinations to restore faith in them. Assessment will be less frequent, more independent, tougher and more credible," said Mr Howard.

"The trouble with the current approach - where all should have prizes and more and more people should go to university - is that the genuinely talented and ambitious, from whatever background, lose out and are held back."

The Tories are already committed to abolishing the post of University Access Regulator and scrapping the Government's ambition of 50% of youngsters going to university.

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