Select Committee on Education and Skills Minutes of Evidence


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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