School diploma plan scrapped

The Government will announce the scrapping of its flagship proposal for a new diploma for all school leavers next week.

The plan, advocated by Tony Blair, was aimed at giving pupils aged 18 or 19 a certificate recording all their achievements at school – including sports achievements and community work as well as academic success.

Ministers have accepted that the proposal was flawed and will instead announce the setting up of a task force that will investigate an English-style baccalaureate system. The task force will be chaired by Mike Tomlinson, the former chief schools inspector who headed the inquiry into last summer's A-level results fiasco. It will include university and employer representatives to ensure its recommendations gain respect.

The "matriculation diploma" was opposed by headteachers who said it had little support from universities or industries. They also disliked the proposal for three separate tiers of diploma, with high-flyers rewarded with a higher-level certificate, arguing that employers would consider the rest to be failures.

David Miliband, the School Standards minister, will unveil the Government's proposals at a conference organised by headteachers and college principals on Tuesday.