Dale Bassett and Luke Tryl are the senior researcher and researcher at Reform, specialising in education. They are co-authors, along with Andrew Haldenby, of Core Business, which is published today.
"The very best means of helping all realise their potential – of making opportunity more equal – is guaranteeing the best possible education for as many as possible.”
So said Michael Gove to the RSA in June, and few would argue with him. But what is the best possible education?
The last 25 years have witnessed successive governments give the same answer: taking a growing number of children out of academic study altogether. Since the introduction of the GCSE and NVQ (by a Conservative Government), the development of the British education system has been based on the assumption that an academic education should be the preserve of the few. Policymakers have determined that from the age of 14 students should be separated into those who can and those who can’t.
This “capability myth” has seeped into every aspect of education policy. Successive governments have introduced vocational qualifications for 14-16 year olds which are both “equivalent” and share a “parity of esteem” with academic qualifications. The result has been a resounding failure, with qualification after qualification being introduced only to be withdrawn after employers and students realise that they are in no way a substitute for academic study. This inconvenient truth has not prevented Ministers from weighting the system in favour of vocational qualifications, quantifying their value above that of GCSEs in school league tables.
This Government has continued the con trick played on generations of students pushed into vocational routes. The Diploma, which conflates academic and vocational learning, has further exacerbated the problem by delivering neither effectively and undermining rigorous academic study.
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