Examination of Witnesses (Questions 420
- 439)
WEDNESDAY 3 MARCH 2004
MR MIKE
TOMLINSON
Q420 Mr Chaytor: So the frequency
or formal assessment and the volume of formal assessments will
be reduced?
Mr Tomlinson: Yes.
Q421 Mr Chaytor: But the range of
methods of assessments may actually increase?
Mr Tomlinson: They may increase,
and, of course, that is part of our remit, to ensure that assessment
is fit for purpose. We have seen, for example, in recent times
the conversion of the GNVQ to an advanced vocational qualification,
but what that did was change the assessment methods and, in doing
so, knocked back some of the teaching and learning strategies
that had been encouraged under a previous regime and had an impact
on student motivation to follow the course. We must ensure fitness
for purpose.
Q422 Mr Chaytor: Would you be looking
to quite distinct methods of assessment for different forms of
main learning?
Mr Tomlinson: Yes.
Q423 Mr Chaytor: You are not looking
for uniformity in assessment?
Mr Tomlinson: No, I do not think
uniformity is the answer. No, the "one size fits all"
model will not suffice. It is not being glib at all. If you had
a choice of two plumbers one of whom had very successfully sat,
with a high pass mark, a three-hour written examination in plumbing
or you had in front of you someone who had been assessed by a
highly skilled plumber and you could say, "I can attest to
you that that person can do the job", which plumber would
you necessarily choose? It is the fitness for purpose point really.
Q424 Chairman: Michael Tomlinson,
one of the things that comes through the criticisms of your report—it
comes from a fear of perhaps abandoning rigor—we have heard
it this morning. What do you say to people who say this could
be—. To give you an example. The Select Committee recently
went to the United States and looked at a broad range of educational
issues in California, and some of us came away deeply worried
about their High School system, which seemed to us to be a diploma
that people got just for being there. We came away with the fear
that whatever we do in the United Kingdom not to go down the route
that certainly we saw in California, which was this "being
there" certificate which did not stretch, did not have rigor,
and that is the kind of criticism you are going to get as, in
a sense, you market this product?
Mr Tomlinson: I think that unless
the proposals stand the test they will not be worthy of implementation.
I think we have to have rigor, we have to have challenge and,
in some instances, I think the position we are in means we have
to actually almost raise the bar in terms of what we expect, because
the demands out there of young people in the future are higher
than they were 20 years ago. So I am as strong an advocate of
rigor and challenge as anyone, and I do not think, as I have said
already, that the diploma is simply awarded because you attended.
It is awarded because you earned it through achievement. What
will be crucial will be setting those thresholds for having achieved
the diploma. As I said earlier, I think at the moment level 2
is five GSCEs A-C with no specification of what that might contain.
The fact that we want everyone, or a large proportion, to get
to level 2 in functional maths and English is raising the requirements
on our population quite considerably.
Q425 Chairman: There was quite a
head of steam that wanted you to come out for a baccalaureate
system. What do you say to those who might argue that you did
not give it a fair enough assessment? How far did you engage in
the various baccalaureate systems? There are some varieties of
it, even indeed the Welsh version. Did you talk to them about
this?
Mr Tomlinson: Yes, the group has
had presentations from a whole range of bodies, including personnel
from the International Baccalaureate. I think our reasons for
not going down that path are in part pragmatic and in part a reaction
to the sort of culture and background we come from. The idea that
you have a very prescriptive approach which will seriously limit
the choice of the student is not something which is, in the main,
welcomed in our system. What do you prescribe and how do you prescribe
it? Even the International Baccalaureate has found that of the
six subjects required, it has not pushed it on the second language.
They have allowed people to do more of one of the others because
of the reaction. So there is that side. The other, of course,
is purely pragmatic. If you follow the IB as a model, then you
would have to have something in the order of between 25 and 28
hours per week taught time that ignores guided learning around
it, which might be homework and personal study and all the rest
of it; and if you do that, then the teacher demand for such a
scheme would be considerable and certainly in excess of what we
have available at the moment. We would have a system that, while
nice, could not be delivered—not exactly a solution to a
problem that I would want to put forward. So it is a mixture of
pragmatism and a mixture of, if you like, a reflection of our
own culture and ways of working. That is why what we have tried
to do is find a way between retaining a considerable element of
choice while at the same time saying absolute free choice is not
in the best interests of the learner and of their future and finding
a balance between those two. We may not have found the right balance
yet, but at least the discussion is open about that and we can
hopefully end up with a solution by September which is more refined
than at present.
Q426 Chairman: Our colleagues in
Wales would have faced the same dilemma surely?
Mr Tomlinson: But they have taken
a different line. They have used their baccalaureate simply to
wrap around all their existing qualifications. The core is a tutorial,
I think it is called, their core part, but around that they have
not taken the line of trying to provide a programme of coherent
learning programmes. Of course, the wrap around concept was embodied
in the first paper of the Government that went out to consultation,
and that was strongly rejected by, I think, the vast majority
of respondents to that document, which is why it did not appear
in the paper that was published in January of last year that set
up this working group.
Q427 Jonathan Shaw: Your report,
Mr Tomlinson, talks about having a variety and balance of assessment
methods, etcetera. We have heard questions from the Chairman about
rigor and you have responded to those. You also say possibly viva
type presentations. The Construction Confederation advocated to
us that they wanted to see assessments through observation of
practical work in situ. The Chairman mentioned California; you
mentioned tourism and leisure and perhaps adding on a language.
Thinking of California and customer care, which is not always
in the upper echelons perhaps that we would want it to be in Britain,
can you envisage a situation where a student taking education,
looking at qualifications and an education in leisure and tourism
would be assessed in situ? We understand what their telephone
manner is like, what their relationship is?
Mr Tomlinson: Some of it, certainly,
yes. It already happens in the best of our vocational qualifications
that the assessment methods vary and that some of that assessment
is done in situ. Some of it is done through portfolio collection,
rather than terminal examination, but, equally, there are terminal
examinations as well. It is not a case of abandoning terminal
examinations. I think the guiding principle must be fitness for
purpose. If we want to know whether someone can deal with a telephone
enquiry effectively, we have got to observe them doing it. Writing
about it does not give us any assurance that they can do it. In
other areas perhaps the best way is through some form of written
examination. I think it has to be fitness for purpose that determines
that.
Q428 Jonathan Shaw: What did you
learn from existing models of assessment and diversity? Have you
looked abroad?
Mr Tomlinson: We have looked,
as the Report says, extensively abroad at what is done and the
extent to which that would help us. There are plenty of examples
in our own country right the way from higher education through
to special schools where different methods of assessment are used
with great success and what we want to do is build on that. That
is why we have mentioned the "viva" as part of
the idea of the extended project/personal challenge. Not only
would it encourage the development of oral skills, but it would
also, I think, ensure that in the debate and in the discussion
that they might have with their peers or their tutors, actually
the work they are talking about they could defend and is maybe
their own. This of course is something which universities are
equally adept at doing. I think we have got a lot there we can
learn from higher education in how we move forward, particularly
at the advanced level.
Chairman: I would like to move on now
to something which you might find familiar, Mr Tomlinson, apprenticeships.
Q429 Jonathan Shaw: You mentioned
early on trying to provide hooks to pull young people through
staying on beyond 16 and this is one way, through apprenticeships
becoming an integral part in the diploma system. Can you tell
the Committee how that might work in practice?
Mr Tomlinson: At this point in
time I cannot give you the exact detail. As I said earlier, there
has been a group established with the agreement of Sir Roy Gardiner
and other parties to take this forward and work on the detail,
but, broadly speaking, what we envisage at the moment is the possibility
that within a broad vocational programme, 14-16, it would be possible
to put into that some of the occupationally specific elements
associated with a particular apprenticeship line and that those
could be inserted into that and obviously accredited, and they
would in effect take those credits forward towards the Modern
Apprenticeship.
Q430 Jonathan Shaw: We have read
in the press that the Government are considering junior apprenticeships.
Mr Tomlinson: Yes, I have read
it in the press as well.
Q431 Jonathan Shaw: You have not
had a discussion with anyone?
Mr Tomlinson: No, I read it in
the press.
Q432 Jonathan Shaw: But the fact
that we have both read it in the press, does that sort of fit
into your thinking? Do you think that 14-16-year-olds should be
able to enrol in junior apprenticeships and where is the balance
between the rest of the curriculum?
Mr Tomlinson: I think that you
touch on the problem that would concern me.
Q433 Jonathan Shaw: Sheep and goats?
Mr Tomlinson: Well, it is not
only sheep and goats, but it is also making decisions at 14 which
might tie people into situations which, by 15 or 16, they find
are not exactly where they want to go, and I would be concerned
that if it had dominated the whole of their programme, then their
capacity to change would be seriously limited, but in the absence
of any detail, that is a worst-case scenario. In the absence of
any detail, I do not know that that is what is actually being
thought of, if indeed such a proposition is being thought of.
Q434 Jonathan Shaw: So it is not
something that your group gave serious consideration to?
Mr Tomlinson: Not at this point
in time. I think that the work with the Modern Apprenticeship,
that may come to the table, I do not know. I think we have got
to be careful about the use of the term "apprenticeship"
if it is to have any real meaning.
Q435 Jonathan Shaw: What does it
mean?
Mr Tomlinson: I think in the sense
we use it is that much of that study is very closely related to
a particular job or narrow range of jobs and is intended to develop
the skills and knowledge necessary for that young person to be
effective in that particular job. They are very job-specific.
Q436 Jonathan Shaw: Yes, so we do
not want scores and scores of 14-year-old junior apprenticeship
plumbers, although it might be that someone from the Committee
who is not here today may advocate that.
Mr Tomlinson: That was the point
of my concern, that people choose too early, but I do not know
what form they would take, you see. I do not know what the detail
is at the moment, if indeed there is any, so it is very difficult
to comment, but I would be concerned if it did lock people into
a single occupationally specific route at 14.
Q437 Mr Chaytor: I do not want to
interrupt Jonathan's questioning, but is this concept, regardless
of the origins of it, not entirely consistent with the kind of
more flexible framework that you are trying to introduce? If a
young person, for example, at the age of 14 opted for a junior
apprenticeship and then found out by the age of 16 that it was
not for them, the flexibility of your system and the fact that
the new tiers of qualifications are not specifically age related
would enable them to opt back into the national qualifications
framework.
Mr Tomlinson: Indeed it would,
as you say, but it would be a worry if, as part of that apprenticeship,
they had not got the core.
Q438 Mr Chaytor: Could they not come
back and do the core?
Mr Tomlinson: I think if you have
not got them by 16, you are in trouble, real trouble. The problem
is that neither you nor I have any detail of what is being thought
about and, therefore, it is very difficult to answer the question
with any assurance. I think we have to keep an open mind and we
have got an open mind.
Q439 Jonathan Shaw: Mr Tomlinson,
earlier on when I was asking you about the three Ds, disillusion,
drop-out and delinquency, we were agreeing, or I think we were,
that you could argue that the current curriculum does not inspire
young people.
Mr Tomlinson: Yes.
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