MP for Harlow in the UK, Robert Halfon has proposed replacing the secondary education system with a baccalaureate with technical & vocational skills as part of a radical overhaul
Dr. Manasvi M Kamat
The GCSE exams in UK should be scrapped and replaced’, recently remarked Robert Halfon the MP for Harlow in the UK and who chairs the House of Commons Education Select Committee since July 2017.
As part of a radical overhaul proposal this MP recommended to replace General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) system with a baccalaureate for school leavers at age 18 that includes technical skills and vocational skills.
The Department for Education however defended against its former Minister’s suggestion, stating GCSEs as “gold standard” exams.
Established in 1989 the GCSE, the General Certificate of Secondary Education is a national qualification for those who decide to leave school at age of 16, without pursuing further academic study towards qualifications such as A-Levels or similar in Class 13 or university degrees in UK. GCSE is offered in schools to Year 9 and 10 students with examinations held at the end of Year 11.
GCSE is used as a prime measure of school or regional attainment and also available to private candidates and generally taken in a number of subjects by pupils in secondary education in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
According to Haflon, taking the GCSE has led to a narrow focus on academic attainment and rote learning, and that a well-rounded education requires more ‘breadth’. This Conservative Party MP remarked that the new-age education must move from knowledge-rich to knowledge-engaged.
Laying emphasis on the critical skills such as communication, critical thinking, negotiation, problem solving, and team working rather than rote learning is the need of the hour and is reported to have said that young people should have access to the technical and creative subjects that will give them the skills that employers are looking for.
According to Halfon, ‘soft skills’ though developed at the expense of knowledge are essential skills that will enable young people to interpret, manipulate and communicate that knowledge.
Halfon has been an ardent supporter of apprenticeships and was first elected as the Member of Parliament in 2010, served as a Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party Minister being re-elected in 2015 and since 2017 became the Minister of State at the Department for Education. He had campaigned for a new university technical college to be built in Harlow, which was to open in September 2014 and set up the Parliamentary Academy, which encourages MPs to employ apprentices in Parliament. For his work on apprenticeships, was also named as the Politician of the Year in 2013.
Claiming GCSE to be ‘pointless’ Halfon suggests that schools should be measured by completion of the ‘holistic’ baccalaureate at age of 18.
He recommends offering apprenticeships to enhance their ‘skill-component’. Instead of taking academic subjects at GCSE and A-level, he wants young people to have a broader curriculum, with vocational training alongside traditional subjects to make them skills-ready.
Since 2005 the UK government has been determined to improve the image of GCSEs by reformatting them to be exam-based rather than including coursework, and adding more difficult content. The basic intention for the change was that the demand matches with other high-performing countries and prepare students for work and further study in a better way.
Between 2005 and 2010, a variety of reforms were made to GCSE qualifications, including increasing modularity and a change to the administration of non-examination assessment. From the first assessment series in 2010 controlled assessment replaced coursework in various subjects, requiring more rigorous exam-like conditions for much of the non-examination assessed work and reducing the opportunity for outside help in coursework.
Since 2010 under the Conservative government of David Cameron and Education Secretary Michael Gove, various changes were made to GCSE qualifications taken. From 2015, a large-scale programme of reform began in England, changing the marking criteria and syllabi for most subjects, the format of qualifications, as well as the grading system.
Under the recent scheme in practice, all GCSE subjects were revised between 2015 and 2018, and all new awards were to be given under the new scheme by the year 2020.
Lord Kenneth Wilfred Baker, the former Conservative Member of Parliament and cabinet minister holding the office of Education Secretary was the person responsible to introduce the GCSE, now feels that the utility of this GCSE has come to an end.
Lord Baker in his most recent conversation stressed a need to couple academic and technical skills together with every individual’s personal development.
Halfon’s recent radical comments received considerable media attention, substantial industry support and sparked a series of healthy academic debate in the UK.
At this point I am reminded about the row of controversy when the then HRD Minister in India, Kapil Sibbal way back in June 2009 announced to scrap the Class X board exam system citing it causes ‘trauma’ to parents and students.
This suggestion did not go down well with the school authorities, parents and teachers and Sibbal was bitterly put down.
It was exactly after 10 years and infamous leakage of mathematics and economics papers for Class 10 and Class 12 examinations conducted by the CBSE creating a near national crisis CBSE in August 2018 planned to change is the question paper pattern of Class X and XII exams from 2020 citing that new pattern would test students on their analytical abilities and reduce the scope of rote learning.
Given the above and that the CBSE text books printed in 2007 are reprinted for around 10-12 years speaks volumes about the speed and sincerity at which educational reform happen in our country.
Halfon and Lord Baker have rightly shown us the way. However radical the suggestions may be, one must candidly admit the wrong and be forthright to follow the right.
