Tories to tackle the media studies menace
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Independent Minds
Exam success in maths and physics would carry greater weight than that in "soft" subjects such as media studies under a proposed shake-up of school league tables unveiled by the Conservatives.
Vocational qualifications, including Labour's new diploma, would be stripped from league table rankings because they are "nowhere near as academically demanding" as A-levels and GCSEs, a report commissioned for the party said.
The performance of schools at GCSE level would no longer be judged on the proportion of pupils who gain A* to C grades. Instead, a points-based system would be introduced, placing greater value on higher grades.
The Conservatives also want schools to be forced to track their former pupils' progress in higher education and in employment.
It emerged this year that a course in "tanning treatments" was worth 45 points in school league table scores – the same as an A grade in one of the four units that make up an A-level.
The proposals to overhaul what the Tories claim is a "dumbed-down" education system are the result of an inquiry commissioned by the shadow Education Secretary, Michael Gove, and carried out by Sir Richard Sykes, the former rector of Imperial College London.
Mr Gove told The Sunday Telegraph: "There is objective evidence from people who care about academic standards that they are not what they should be."
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Comments
Repair broken Britain? Let's break it in half! To make sure that Oxbridge is able to chose the most talented, we are going backwards to force students to take subjects that they are sick of by the age of 14.
More truancy, more exclusion, more crime until after a few years they realise it isn't working!
I have no point with an elite A level exam if that's what you want. Certainly there is room for greater challenge for the most able post 16 (and pre 16) where the league table system makes schools very feeble in what they provide but why do you have to damage the prospects of the least engaged and able pre 16 to achieve it?
Meanwhile Britain leads the world in fashion, art and design, music, dance and theatre, and has possibly the best broadcasting organisations in the world.
So the Tories plan to encourage schools to produce more of the former while downgrading what they see as the 'soft' subjects studied by the latter. Pure genius.
Besides, have any of these people even done A-level Art (or any A level for that matter!), you have to be bloody talented to get an A.