New GCSE revolution

Richard Garner

Pupils will find it harder to gain a top grade GCSE pass under a radical change to the traditional ABC grading system being planned by Education Secretary Michael Gove today. He is planning to scrap the present grading system entirely and replace A* and A grade passes with a one, two, three or four pass.

The new numerical system will make it easier for universities to differentiate between candidates – thus allowing the more selective universities to award provisional places to the brightest candidates for their most popular courses such as law and medicine.

Mr Gove told MPs of the proposal when he addressed members of the Commons select committee on education today, telling: “We have set the bar too low. We have had a low level of expectations in the past.”

The new-style GCSEs will start to be taught in schools in September 2015.

Graham Stuart, the Conservative chairman of the committee, also argued that Mr Gove could be “deliberately” paving the way for “grade deflation” in the exam system through the changes. He said that the pass rate could also go down in the first year of pupils sitting the new exam (2017) – “because schools don’t know how to work the system”.

Students who previously were awarded an A grade pass could be awarded a four under the new system (a one or two would be roughly equivalent to an A* while three or four would equate to an A grade). Academics argue a four would not be seen by employers and universities as a top grade pass. Numbers are likely to replace grades throughout the system so instead of A* to G grade passes students would be awarded one to 10 passes.

However, Mr Gove replied that that the current exam system meant teachers were spending “too much time on exam technique and not enough on content”.

His comments follow research by the Department for Education showing that GCSE results are a marginally better indicator of a student’s degree prospects than the AS level – currently taken at the end of the first year of the sixth-form and worth half an A-level.

As part of his exam reforms, Mr Gove plans to uncouple it from A-levels so that universities would not be able to use it to determine who should be awarded places.

The Independent, 13.05.2013

Task 20. Translate the words in italics into Russian. What group of media discourse lexis are they?

Task 21. Recapitulate the articles’ idea in three sentences, put them down.

Task 22.Watch Files 1-8 in subfolder What_Accent and determine the regional accent you hear in each file.

Task 23. Watch Video 14.4,define its genre. Transcribe the piece.

You may need to know the meaning of the word Ofsted.It stands for the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills. It is the non-ministerial government department of Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Schools in England.

Answer the questions below.

1. Why has the idea of introducing new vocational diploma turned out to be a flop?

2. Whose brainchild was the plan?

3. What is the share of pupils that failed to get a qualification?

Task 24. Watch Video 14.5. What its idea?

Date: 2016-04-22; view: 516