Examination of Witnesses (Questions 420-439)
SUSAN ANDERSON,
BENEDICT ARORA,
MARY CURNOCK
COOK AND
PROFESSOR ANN
HODGSON
10 NOVEMBER 2008
Q420 Fiona Mactaggart: One of
the interesting things we have heard from you as a panel of witnesses
is the distinction between the curriculum and assessing the curriculum.
That is something that we need to focus on. One of the concerns
that we have encountered is about routes through the curriculum—whether
you can move from one point to another in a way that makes sense
to you as a learner, and whether qualifications make sense. One
thing that has been suggested is that a Level 2 or Level 3 diploma
may mean someone having to go backwards in order to do a more
applied qualification, if that is what they want to achieve. Are
we sure that, for example, a Level 2 engineering diploma will
prepare a young person to go onto a Level 3 science qualification?
Mary Curnock Cook: It depends
very much on what guidance a young person has been given when
they chose their diploma, particularly when they chose their additional
and specialist learning. For example, someone who has done a Level
2 diploma in engineering will almost certainly have done science
GCSEs as well—either triple science or 21st-century science,
which should prepare them to progress to pure science A-levels
if that is what they want to do. Again, that is about the broad
curriculum—it is certainly not going to stop them. We have
designed the diploma so that there is a lot of commonality between
units in the diploma, in the apprenticeships, and, of course,
GCSEs and A-levels, which will always be components of the diploma
as well. The outcome should make it easy for people to progress
and transfer between the different suites of qualifications. Another
thing in which I am interested, particularly bearing in mind the
raising of the participation age, is that the existing GCSE and
A-level diet has made us think rigidly in two-year time slots—someone
starts at 14, at 16 they do GSCEs and at 18 they do A-levels.
We might start to see much more flexibility in those patterns.
Young people might start diplomas, complete them in one year and
progress to something else, or they might perhaps even take three
years to build up and progress to A-levels.
We are considering the changes about which
Ann was talking, but we are no longer talking about 45-minute
lessons throughout the week. We are teaching in different ways
and the curriculum has been designed in different ways. We will
start to see some profound changes in the way in which the curriculum
is organised that will give young people that flexibility.
Q421 Fiona Mactaggart: There is
a bit of that that sounds really exciting and a bit that sounds
worrying. The complexity of what you describe in many schools
or other learning institutions will mean that young people get
lost. They will not be sufficiently clear about how to get themselves
through it. My experience of advice and guidance for young people
who are that age has not been particularly impressive.
Mary Curnock Cook: In some ways,
the rather random qualifications, other than GCSEs and A-levels,
that are available in the 14-to-19 offer at the moment makes it
difficult. I agree that advice and guidance is absolutely critical,
but the whole 14-to-19 qualifications strategy is about beginning
to streamline the qualification offer so that young people can
see the progression routes and what is available to them, without
having a confusing array of different qualifications whose currency
they perhaps do not understand or lacking clear progression routes
for them to follow.
Susan Anderson: May I make a point
on careers? It is important that young people are given good careers
advice from their schools. As employers, we have a role to play
in ensuring that young people realise that there are interesting,
well-paid careers open to them—for example, in our particular
area of concern of science, technical subjects and maths. We need
to ensure that young people realise that there is a breadth of
opportunities open to them and that, at the moment at any rate,
three full GCSEs in science—the full physics, chemistry
and biology—is the best preparation for A-level. All the
studies indicate that that is the case. We have about 40% of young
people getting a Level 6 at age 14, and our view is that far more
than the current 7% ought to be going on to do the three full
science GCSEs. We need to say to those young people, "You
are very good at science and should be doing three full sciences."
We know that some schools do not have the teaching ability to
do that, but many do. We should not have issues with, for example
timetabling, as such problems can easily be overcome. Ensuring
that young people know that if they get a Level 6 at age 14 they
are more than capable of doing three full sciences and that is
the best preparation for A-level and study beyond. Schools ought
automatically to opt those young people in to three full GCSEs
so that they get the best preparation for A-level. Too many students
do not realise that by narrowing their options to double science
they are not preparing themselves so well for A-levels, and therefore
for going on to university, as it is hoped many will. They are
denying themselves that opportunity. There are many students who
would like to do an engineering diploma and, as Mary says, they
may well combine that with three full sciences. However, we need
to ensure that students are aware not only of the range of options
open to them but of the fact that they must not narrowing down
their options. One of our concerns would be, for example, about
the diplomas for the 16-to-18 group. At the moment, if they chose
to do a diploma in one area it could well cut them off from being
able to change at 18 and choose to go away from science and pursue
an arts qualification. We need to ensure that young people realise
the consequences of over-specialising, as well as saying that
the diplomas can be a really good opportunity which, if they decide
to be an engineer, can take them up to an engineering career.
However, if students did an engineering diploma equivalent to
seven GCSEs, that could narrow their options, so careers advice
is absolutely essential—and we need much better careers
advice than most of our young people are getting at the moment.
Q422 Fiona Mactaggart: My impression
of diplomas is that they are designed to keep options more open,
and I have told companies in my constituency, where there are
many science companies, that they play an important role. Many
young people see science as leading either to medicine or to science
teaching—neither of them jobs that many of them want—and,
of course, forensic science, as we see on the "CSI"
programmes. The real job for business and industry is to show
that students can end up designing Ferraris if they do good science.
They could end up having a number of very well-paid careers. That
is what my constituents want to hear. I put that back in your
court.
Susan Anderson: As I said at the
beginning, we absolutely accept that that is something that business
must do. I could not agree more.
Q423 Fiona Mactaggart: I am slightly
worried, as this rolls out, about how GCSE coursework is assessed.
Concerns have been expressed about plagiarism—using too
much material from the Internet and so on—and about internal
assessment not being sufficiently rigorous to deal with those
problems. I understand that the diplomas will depend hugely on
internal assessment. I am anxious that precisely the same scandals
and questions could dog diplomas and damage their reputation more
widely. What is being done to stop that happening?
Mary Curnock Cook: That is an
important question. Public confidence in those qualifications
is vital if they are to be successful. As you say, coursework
did suffer a drop in public confidence. It has been largely replaced
with what we call controlled assessment. We are trying to ensure
that we do not lose the value of different types of assessment.
We do not want everyone doing applied learning and then having
to sit in an exam hall and write about it. Such assessment is
not fit for purpose. We are trying to get a balanced assessment
that assesses the skills that we have been trying to teach and
the applied learning that has been gathered over the programme,
but in a way that will command public confidence. There is a large
programme going on to ensure that each school, centre and consortium
has two things. The first is an assessment leader, who is responsible
for all the internal assessment of that centre or consortium.
The second is an assessment expert for each line of learning,
who will take particular responsibility to ensure that that is
the case. We are also working with the awarding bodies to ensure
that there is a rigorous process of moderation, validation and
sampling of the assessment outcomes. My view is that we need to
do that in the open and that we need to let people see how rigorous
assessment can be, to ensure that we do not lose the value of
different types of assessment. We also must ensure that the public
have confidence in assessment, because that is such an important
point.
Q424 Fiona Mactaggart: So, with
all this, is the diploma being asked to do too much? That is one
of the things that strikes me—that it has been given a range
of purposes. University entrance, recruitment to craft and technician
levels in employment and engaging disaffected young people are
just three of the jobs that the diploma is supposed to be taking
on. Will it work?
Professor Hodgson: That is a key
question. One of the technical answers is that those purposes
might be different at the different levels, so at Level 3 you
are clearly talking about higher education; at the lower levels,
you might be talking about beginning to enter a subject. I am
afraid, however, that the diplomas have been asked to do too much.
They are seen as a kind of Trojan horse, as a lot of previous
qualifications reforms have been. We tend to reform by qualification
rather than by curriculum. That is why I said that it is very
good that this time the curriculum is being looked at alongside
qualifications, to ensure that there is some match between those
two areas. There is a problem with the diplomas too, because one
of the things that we have not really mentioned is those learners
who are not able to be on the diploma programme or taking GCSEs
or in apprenticeships, but who will be on the foundation learning
tier. That factor has possibly not been discussed enough. For
those learners, there is a real issue about how that part of the
curriculum is perceived. Because the diplomas were not brought
down to a lower level—entry level—some learners are
not on the three main routeways that most of the public would
perceive as part of the qualifications framework. An awful lot
has been placed on the diplomas. We have talked about the diploma
so far as if it will make the difference between whether young
people participate or not. However, there are other qualifications
and there are other forms of learning that may be equally important,
if not more so, for some learners at Key Stage 4. The diplomas
are not the answer to raising levels of participation; they are
but one part of the 14-to-19 reforms, and I think that we need
to see them like that. They have been the qualifications that
people have focused on, but they are just one aspect of a much
broader reform programme.
Q425 Fiona Mactaggart: I am interested
in what Benedict has to say about this issue, because it seems
to me that one of the problems about our secondary education system
is that it owes more to Gradgrind than it does to Sissy Jupe and
her circus, if I can continue the analogy. I am not sure that
we have the teaching skills to enable this system to be much more
creative and to enable the sort of creativity in the curriculum
that would encourage and engage young people who, at present,
are not achieving because what they see does not engage them.
Benedict Arora: It is a very interesting
question about whether we have the teaching skills in the sector
to do this stuff and, if not, whether we can get them in over
a period of time. If you look at any new qualification or any
new reform to the education system, it will always take a little
while to bed in or bed down, until it is absolutely stable. The
fact that things may change over the next few years would not
concern me too much. We must, however, crack that problem about
the creative teacher, because if we do not do so we will not get
the standards plus the wider skill sets that we absolutely need
for our children for the future world of work and for the future
of our society. I do not think that we have those teachers there
at the moment. That is partly because of the way that we have
been training teachers. With the more historically restrictive
curriculum, people have been on much more of a production line,
whereas now there is an opportunity that we must take up, to re-energise
teaching as a profession and to give teachers the excitement and
creativity to go out there and deliver stuff in different ways.
I think there is an important role in championing how that can
be done, and we must work with the Training and Development Agency
and other relevant organisations to show it working in practice.
When we ran pilot projects on, for example, the Leonardo project,
which was part of the science curriculum, the teachers came out
completely refreshed. Having gone into it really scared and nervous
about what they were letting themselves in for, they came out
the other side as complete evangelists for a different way of
doing things. I think it can be done, even with a teaching work
force that is feeling a little jaded. If you change that dynamic
and get positive relationships going between the teacher and the
pupil, and you start to see people flourish, that is what people
really want to do when they become teachers. I think it is doable,
but it is not going to be easy and it is going to take a lot of
cultural change.
Mary Curnock Cook: I wanted to
bring in some live feedback from the first cohort who are now
involved in the first five lines of learning in the diploma. As
you might imagine, QCA is keeping close to the people who are
doing it on the ground, and we had our first meeting last month
with people from centres that are delivering diplomas. I must
say, slightly to our relief and delight, the feedback was very
positive. It was wonderful to hear all the stories of young people
who were really enjoying the programme. They were only a few weeks
into it, but we had terribly positive feedback from learners on
the programme who were motivated, excited, and really enjoying
the different style, and feeling that the others were perhaps
feeling left out, that kind of thing. To pick up the other point,
the teaching work force are also energised by the difference of
the diploma; not just by the diploma principal learning, but also
by things such as the project. One of the best experiences I had
was going down to Farnborough college, which did a pilot for the
project. It had 300 students who had voluntarily undertaken the
project, with a lot of extra work, and the buzz in that place
was phenomenal. The different titles and projects that they had
taken on were incredible, but the thing that I really liked was
that the pilot had pushed the boundaries for the teaching work
force too. They had suddenly found that they were supervising
projects that were outside their main subject expertise, and that
they were had to approach things in a different way. The combined
energy and synergy from that was absolutely fantastic, so the
early feedback is really positive.
Professor Hodgson: I would concur
that it is energising teachers to teach in a different way and
within a different timetable. The project has always been something
that we would applaud. The issue will come—I am sorry if
this is repetitive—when the assessment kicks in. It is not
just a question of teaching and learning, but of how the thing
is going to be assessed in its various parts, and how that actually
goes, what the results are, and so on. I am not trying to pour
cold water on it, because I would agree that the people at the
forefront whom I worked with are certainly finding it energising
to have a different way of offering teaching and learning to young
people and they feel stimulated by it. The crunch point, however,
will be when the examinations and the various tests are in place
and we know what the results are like, how many learners passed
and all that kind of thing, as we had with the Curriculum 2000
A-level reforms.
Susan Anderson: From a business
perspective, we see young people who have not thrived in a classroom
situation, who have left school at 16 and successfully moved on
to an apprentice scheme. I would back up what colleagues are saying
about children having an opportunity to learn in a different way
and to mix practical learning with theoretical learning, in the
way that an apprentice does. We see lots of children who have
not thrived and have left school with low-level qualifications
or no qualifications at all, who often then thrive in an apprentice
situation and go on to do advanced apprenticeships and then foundation
degrees and so on. I would support what colleagues are saying,
but it is also important not to forget that employers are not
looking only for people who have applied qualifications, which
is what the sector-specific diplomas will be. It is also important
that we recognise (as I said before) detailed subject knowledge,
whether it is in the physics curriculum, through quantum physics
or whatever, or in a study of Dickens, through a GCSE or A-level
in English; these are also important skills.
Many young people really do not know what
they want to do, so it is not appropriate for them to specialise.
It is about valuing both the applied and the traditional academic
approach. We in business value both those things and would not
want people to be pushed down either route; we want them to have
the opportunities to learn about all the things they want to in
both respects.
Chairman: We can come back to these questions,
but we have to push on.
Q426 Mr Stuart: How difficult
will it be for diplomas to go from being taken by 0.5% of the
cohort to become the qualification of choice?
Mary Curnock Cook: I suppose that
I would say this, wouldn't I, but I have a huge amount of confidence
in, and enthusiasm for, the diplomas. We have just over 12,000
young people engaged with diplomas at the moment. I am absolutely
convinced that in the next year, once that cohort is enjoying
the diplomas and is seen to be motivated by them, that number
will increase exponentially. Of course, we have the other lines
of learning coming through the system, as well, which will attract
different learners. I do not know how long it will take, but my
view is that, within five to 10 years, diplomas will be the qualification
of choice, because they offer a broad, balanced curriculum and
because young people can flex them to be either more academic,
as Susan says, or to be vocational and even occupational if they
want, through the flexibilities within the diploma programme.
Q427 Mr Stuart: So you are trying
to reintroduce Tomlinson without saying so, are you? It can be
all things to all men; it can be academic or applied, it can fulfil
every requirement and it should all come under this one umbrella.
Is that your view?
Mary Curnock Cook: It is a curriculum
design and there are fundamentals in it: there are mandatory units,
the principal learning is the coherent piece of learning, then
you have the additional and specialist learning, which allows
young people to flex the diploma for their own particular aptitudes
and interests. Yes, there have always been incredibly strong echoes
of the excellent work that Mike Tomlinson did in the diplomas
that we are designing today; the concept of coherent learning
and of a curriculum-based approach to qualifications is strongly
present. The diploma design is not a million miles away from the
Tomlinson design—the three parts to it—so that is
where it is going.
Professor Hodgson: I think one
should make a distinction. In a way, what happened there was that
the conversation moved on to something that, perhaps, was not
being said. Although I concur with Mary in some ways, there are
some bits on which I would disagree. Yes, the actual design of
the diplomas themselves is quite similar to the design that Mike
Tomlinson proposed. What is different—it is a crucial difference—is
that in the work that Mike Tomlinson did, the diploma was the
system, because there were levels of diplomas, for all qualifications.
Nothing would have lain outside that system; GCSEs and A-levels
would not have lain outside the diploma framework.
Q428 Mr Stuart: Do we have the
worst of all worlds now? We seem to have a plethora of different
qualifications, which is extremely confusing. We have heard from
the CBI and others just how poor career guidance is in schools.
Professor Hodgson: I think it
depends where we are going. Let us assume, as is actually case,
that gradually over time we move to a system where everyone is
taking a diploma. Such a diploma would not just be like the ones
that are there at the moment, but would be more general and would
apply in general subjects, such as science and modern languages,
underneath a diploma framework—I do not mean the last three
lines, but a much more general diploma than that. Then it clearly
would be the qualification of choice, because it would be the
only qualification that was there. That would have a simplicity
to it that the current system does not have.
You are quite right in saying that we now
have a large number of route ways, and there are a lot of differences
between them, whereas under a diploma framework some common learning—this
goes back to the aims and purposes that I spoke about earlier
when we were on the curriculum—would apply to all young
people aged 14 to 19. We should not make assumptions when we talk
about diplomas becoming the qualification of choice. I would suggest
that the current form of diplomas will not, because GCSEs and
A-levels will still be strong in people's imaginations and will
still have a strong role to play, not least in the independent
sector and so on, but if, as was conceived under the Tomlinson
review, the diploma were to become the overarching framework for
all qualifications, albeit in a flexible way, it would clearly
become the qualification of choice.
Q429 Mr Stuart: May I put this
to you, Susan? Is it not the truth that we have the worst of all
worlds? A section that appears in the guidance for all the diplomas
states: "The Diploma is a unique qualification for young
people of all abilities who have an interest in sector-related
learning." There appears to be confusion. Suddenly academic
things are being tacked on, yet the definition on page 1 of the
guidance for every topic so far says that the diploma is a sector-related
learning qualification. Only 12,000 people are engaged in it.
The truth is that, despite all the fuss, it is practically stillborn,
is it not?
Susan Anderson: Businesses have
put a lot of effort into helping with the design of the sector-specific
diplomas, and we can see that there is real value in them, particularly
for applied learning, but they are but an addition to the existing
offer. We found when we consulted our members that they understand
and value A-levels and GCSEs, but they also see an important role
for apprenticeships and they like qualifications such as BTECs.
It is important that we get employers also onside. As I said,
they have been involved in the design of the sector-specific diplomas,
but we have consulted them extensively and found that they see
little added value at this time in the three additional diplomas.
That is not to say that they will not be convinced, but they are
not convinced at present that we should be devoting resource and
energy to what are called "academic diplomas". There
is support for sector-specific diplomas, but, at this stage, A-levels
and GCSEs, particularly when it comes to sciences, seem to be
a good preparation for further study of those subjects, whether
at apprenticeship, university or college level. At this stage,
we can see little added value in extending beyond the sector-specific
diplomas.
Q430 Mr Stuart: Has the CBI done
the dirty? You were there for the launch of diplomas but appear
to have been backtracking all the way ever since. You use the
academic diplomas as the excuse, but you sound pretty unenthusiastic
about the whole thing. With just 12,000 learners engaged this
year, what a lot of us had hoped would be a serious breakthrough
in applied learning could be killed very quickly if you become
even more lukewarm. It would be interesting to hear from the others
as well, but this is a fragile thing, is it not? Despite the wall
of money and the political effort, the truth is that the numbers
are so tiny that this thing could easily die.
Susan Anderson: There has been
a lot of support for the sector-specific applied diplomas. Many
businesses have spent a lot of effort and time to ensure that
they reflect the sort of content that will be helpful in a business
environment as well as in an academic environment. The engineering
diploma, for example, has been pored over by the sector skills
council concerned—the Science, Engineering, Manufacturing
Technologies Alliance—and individual businesses, and we
know that many universities will value it. It is not true to say
that business does not support the sector-specific diplomas. As
I said, many people across many different areas have put a lot
of time and effort into ensuring that they reflect what business
wants. However, business also values GCSEs and A-levels, and at
times has been perturbed by the complexity of the diploma system.
Employers find it difficult to understand why there needs to be
quite so many different levels of diploma. Those are the issues
that members put to us. Regarding our involvement with academic
diplomas, if I may continue to call them that, the initiative
rather took us by surprise, but we said that we would consult
and we have consulted. We thought it absolutely right, before
we gave a view on the value of the three additional diploma lines,
that we should consult our members. We made it very clear to the
Government that we were going to consult and, having consulted,
it is very important that we have identified members' reservations.
Mary Curnock Cook: I just wanted
to say something about phase 4 diplomas. We have had decades to
get used to the currency of GCSEs and A-levels, so, of course,
employers feel comfortable with them and understand that currency,
and are going to feel nervous about something new. It is going
to take a long time for that kind of understanding to come through,
but I do not think that I can listen to both Susan and Ann talking
about progression and participation in modern foreign languages
and science. History shows that simply tweaking and re-tweaking
GCSEs and A-levels has not given us the breakthrough that we are
all looking for in participation and achievement in languages
and sciences. With science in particular, I have a feeling that
children adore it at primary level, when they have a fantastic
time doing it, but then it all goes a bit dead at secondary level,
when they think that it is really difficult. What we want to do
with the diplomas—I will not call them academic diplomas;
they are lines of learning in the same way that the sector-based
ones are lines of learning—is to engage those young people
and keep them thinking about scientific and technological concepts,
or about languages, in the context of an international and global
economy. We want to make sure that we keep them engaged, perhaps
get some of them to progress on to pure science, and give the
others at least a sound technological and scientific base to take
into employment and further learning. I do not quite see this
issue in the same way. May I carry on and talk about the numbers
engaged in the diplomas? This is term one of a very new qualification.
Q431 Mr Stuart: So you are pleased?
This is what Ministers have most hoped for.
Mary Curnock Cook: The 50,000
figure was never a target, but was from estimates put forward
by the diploma consortiums when they went through the gateway,
when the qualifications were barely available for them to consider
properly. So, yes, perhaps it would have been nicer to have more
learners, but I am very comfortable with 12,000, which is enough
for us to have a good look at the diplomas and to evaluate them
going forward. I am convinced that the number will grow from there,
and I do not think that anyone should be despondent. These are
very early days.
Q432 Mr Stuart: You said that tweaking
A-levels and GCSEs has not worked, but neither have previous vocational
efforts. We have had the technical and educational initiative,
GNVQs and vocational A-levels. This is hardly the first time that
someone has tried to embed some new thing and they have all failed.
Now we have diplomas in tiny numbers, relatively speaking—well
done, Chairman, for restraining yourself. Why do you think that
previous efforts have failed and why will diplomas work where
they have failed, relatively speaking?
Mary Curnock Cook: I do not think
that you could point to any of the previous initiatives—some
of which were slightly before my time, I hasten to add—as
having had quite the same joint, collaborative effort. It is not
just about people such as us in the QCA sitting in our offices
inventing stuff with a bit of consultation. There has been real
engagement from practitioners in education and higher education,
as well as from employers. Those people have not just been getting
the paperwork once a month; people have been putting hundreds
of hours of real thought into it, and have been consulting back
with their employer groups. I just do not think that we have seen
anything like the consensus-building that has gone into developing
the curriculum for the diplomas before they were put back to the
awarding bodies to be developed into qualifications. Anything
that came before was of a completely different character.
Q433 Mr Stuart: Historically, schools
have had difficulty delivering vocationally-oriented learning,
due either to a lack of expertise or equipment. Is there a danger
that diplomas will end up with people writing about the skills
they will need, rather than directly acquiring applied knowledge?
In the description, there are four settings: school-based workshops,
which is in a school; simulated work environments, which is also
in a school; use of virtual learning environments, which sounds
like a school; and finally, work-based enterprise activities and
projects. Is there a danger of having a lot of virtual, surreal
applied learning, and not much real stuff?
Professor Hodgson: Clearly, there
is a danger of that. It is interesting—I sound like an advocate
for the diplomas. I would like to make a distinction between the
role of diplomas pre-16 and post-16. Pre-16, they have made real
changes to the curriculum. However, I think that those changes
were already happening, because people were bringing in vocational
qualifications under the increased flexibility programme, prior
to the introduction of the diplomas. It is wholly helpful—right
across the ability range, if possible—for people to be introduced
to more applied learning as well as theoretical learning, and
to look at the interrelationship between them. I am slightly less
confident about the post-16 diplomas. The distinction between
now and what happened previously is that there are now consortiums
set up across the country. Those consortiums usually contain a
further education college as well as schools. A lot of work has
been done to allow college lecturers and teachers to work together,
either in school settings or in college settings. Under Building
Schools for the Future, the increased flexibility programme and
college building programmes, a lot of work and money has been
put in to upgrade facilities so that they have a more industry-based
feel, and there is a better possibility of more applied learning
than in the past. You raise an interesting issue: there is still
a problem about people feeling that it is just the geography teacher
who must now take on a diploma. There are concerns about ensuring
that the teaching profession has enough support, initial training
and continuous professional development to deliver the kind of
learning experiences that diplomas promise, particularly at Key
Stage 4. In some ways, that is not so difficult post-16 because
a lot of those learners will be not in schools but in colleges
where, in my view, they should be if they want a more applied
qualification.
Q434 Mr Timpson: May I ask you
about the range of diplomas that will be available? In the helpful
chart that was set out, we saw the current diplomas. Languages
and science, which for some of you are close to your heart, will
not be taught until September 2011—nearly three years away.
Have we got the range right? Should we be putting languages and
science further up the list? If they cannot be put up the list,
what is the reason for that?
Mary Curnock Cook: I am happy
to try and answer that. It takes three years to develop each line
of learning. The first five subjects started in 2005 and we have
them by 2008. The next five started a year later. There is a limit
to the capacity of the awarding bodies to develop the qualifications
and have them ready and of a high enough quality to put into the
system. There is also a limit to the capacity of centres, schools
and colleges regarding how much new material they can take on
at the same time. For each line of learning, there are three qualifications—Level
1, Level 2 and Level 3. The science, language and humanities diplomas
are on the same timetable for development as the previous lines
of learning. It was started as soon as the announcement was made.
We have tried to ensure that centres get
the qualifications a whole year before first delivery. These qualifications
will be in centres in 2010, so they will know exactly what they
have to do. They will be able to plan the curriculum, plan the
lessons, plan the tasks and so on for a whole year before first
delivery starts. Experience has shown that if you do not have
that lead-in time, you are more likely to run into problems. It
may feel a bit slow, but it is still quite a rapid development
programme, but one which we would not want to speed up because
that would have bad consequences.
Susan Anderson: We cannot afford
to wait for a science diploma to come along before we start addressing
some of the issues around science. As I said, we have come up
with an action plan to seek to ensure that more young people take
advantage of the existing offer and choose to do the three full
sciences at GCSE. That is the best preparation for A-level. There
are things that we can do now to ensure that more young people
choose to do three full sciences at GCSE, choose sciences at A-level
and then go on to university. We have to recognise that it is
our role in business as well to help to open young people's minds
to the opportunity that a science career can offer.
Q435 Mr Timpson: Could I ask you
to address the issue of the range that is available in the current
list of intended diplomas to be rolled out over the next three
or four years? Are we missing anything there? How did we come
to that grouping? Is there anything that was put on the table
that was dismissed and which we should perhaps look at again,
or are you happy with what is being proposed?
Mary Curnock Cook: If I cast my
mind back, a piece of work was done, led by QCA but involving
a wide range of stakeholders, to write down all the subjects that
existed. They were broken into 15 areas and then there were sub-sectors
and sub-sectors off that which were designed to show how the whole
potential curriculum could fit in. When the first 14 lines of
learning were announced, we mapped those 14 sector areas against
that and felt that the coverage was adequate. Again, with the
three phase 4 diploma lines of learning, we have mapped that coverage
against the existing offer of GCSEs, A-levels and other qualifications.
I am fairly confident that it covers the range but if you were
looking for a diploma offer that covered everything, there may
still be some gaps and we would need to look at that in the light
of experience. Do not forget that the phase 3 and the phase 4
diplomas do not actually exist yet. We have not seen the full
range of curriculum that will be incorporated in them.
Q436 Mr Timpson: Referring to the
grouping that began in September 2008 and the breakdown of numbers
that we have for each of those groups, can you tell us which of
those have had a good uptake and which have not been so popular?
Mary Curnock Cook: The uptake
has been fairly even across the lines of learning, but the most
popular line of learning in this first phase has been creative
and media. The other four have very similar profiles across the
lines of learning.
Q437 Mr Timpson: Can I reopen an
argument that we were having earlier about the academic as opposed
to the vocational basis of diplomas and try to mesh the two? Is
there not a danger that we are trying to shoehorn the academic
and vocational learning into the same qualification structure
and that the teachers who are going to be out there teaching will
not have sufficient expertise to deliver what the diploma requires?
Benedict Arora: I think that that
mixture is what makes diplomas quite exciting. The fact that we
are starting to deliver both hard and soft knowledge and skills
through a single qualification is a real breakthrough—a
step forward. Therefore, I do not think that that is necessarily
an issue in its own right. What will be really interesting about
the diplomas is that a lot of their effectiveness, or a significant
element of it, will hinge on the quality of the work-related learning
dimensions, and on getting beyond a classic work experience-type
experience to something that is much more sophisticated and is
a rich experience. We are supporting some pilots projects focused
on the Creative Industries which are looking at how you can do
that. Some very interesting things can be done, but if that work-related
learning bit is not a rich experience, the diplomas will not deliver
on their full potential.
Susan Anderson: Another interesting
issue is the extent to which, at the moment, children are able
to take quite a mixed bag of A-levels. They can take a language,
a couple of sciences and a humanities subject. That is quite helpful,
because it means that they are not overspecialising. One issue
that we must address before we go much further is that it would
be a shame if those children currently doing two sciences plus
an arts subject and a language felt that they could not do those
two sciences because they would then have to do all science, or
that they could not do two arts subjects with one science and
a language. We just need to ensure that we are not, as you say,
shoehorning people into specialising too early. That is a real
concern. It would certainly be of concern to employers if, rather
than doing two science A-levels and two other subjects—certainly
in the first year of A-level—young people were deterred
and thought, "I am not sure whether I want to be a scientist
and therefore I do not want to do a diploma worth three and a
half A-levels in science." At the moment, I think that around
a third of young people, if they had this mix-and-match approach,
or had real flexibility about choosing different A-levels and
mixing and matching sciences, humanities and languages, would
not fully recognise that they were able to embed a maths or a
science A-level in a languages diploma. That is an interesting
issue, and it certainly needs to be explored to ensure that we
are not narrowing people down. From a business perspective, the
last thing we want to do is to become like the Gradgrinds and
say that this has got to be all about applied learning, about
preparing young people for the workplace, for businesses and for
industry. It is about ensuring that young people have a broad
range of learning opportunities, and that we both stretch the
brightest and engage with those who are disengaged or disfranchised.
From that perspective, it is still important to recognise that
if we have a broad-brush approach to young people, there has to
be enough room in the system to accommodate the needs of those
who have not decided that they want to be scientists or engineers,
or to study all three languages.
Professor Hodgson: A trick was
missed in a way with the general diplomas because what is good
about the diploma programme, in my view, is that it is a programme
of learning and includes personal, learning and thinking skills,
a project and functional skills. Therefore, it ensures some kind
of breadth of learning. I think that the general diplomas would
have been better had they included more of a free choice of A-level
subjects and also a core that was made up of personal, learning
and thinking skills, the project and the functional skills. Within
that, some people might choose to specialise in three sciences,
plus those other bits; others might choose to take a more mixed
package. It would have been easier to move towards that reform.
It would have been a way of bringing A-levels into the diploma
design without constraining them, as you will have to, I think,
not so much with the humanities but with modern languages and
science. I have to agree that it sounds a little narrow. It is
unfortunate that that was the approach taken to the general diplomas,
rather than a more open approach, which would have moved us further
towards the Tomlinson conception.
Q438 Chairman: Mary, you have
some serious allegations about narrowing.
Mary Curnock Cook: Of course,
there are some people who say that A-levels represent too much
of a specialisation at age 16 and do not allow young people to
get life skills and some of the skills that they need for higher
education and employment. I would just plant that thought in your
mind as well.
I would like to pick up on the idea of academic
versus vocational. What we have seen up to now is a great divide
between academic qualifications and everything else, which was
vocational. What that meant was that any young person who wanted
to do something vocational was automatically labelled second class
in some way. That is incredibly unhelpful for all sorts of reasons.
What we have tried to do with the diplomas is to ensure that they
balance applied learning and theoretical learning. In the sector-based
lines of learning, it is 50% applied, and 50% of it is knowledge
and understanding as well. It is important for all the lines of
learning. For the sector-based ones, it is not just employers
talking about sector interests but educationalists talking about
the knowledge underpinning it and employers insisting on rigorous
knowledge underpinning. We also have employers deeply engaged
in the phase 4 diplomas in science, language and humanities. In
some ways, I see the phase 4 diplomas as an open door for employers
to engage with some of the academic curriculum from which they
may have felt excluded in the development of GCSEs and A-levels.
It is important. We should not forget that there is an inherent
vocationality in all academic subjects. When people learn French
at school, they do not automatically become linguists. They are
learning skills through their subject that they can apply in employment
and further learning. I think that it is really unhelpful to keep
on with academic versus vocational. We should try to see it as
a more holistic approach to the different types of learning. Every
young person needs a bit of both. The diploma structure is designed
so that one can flex it towards more academic or more vocational,
depending on particular aptitude, but everyone will get a bit
of both. That is really important.
Q439 Chairman: Is that really
coming to the nub of it? Your answers have come back to that.
From the perspective of some of us on this Committee, it was the
CBI that did not like the Tomlinson report on the original diplomas.
That was well consulted on right across the piece over a long
period, but many of us feel that it was Digby Jones marching down
to No. 10 and banging the desk there that sank the Tomlinson recommendations.
Do you see that as a valid interpretation of the history? Does
that not continue? Are you not still worried about the diploma,
with its more general nature, becoming an all-consuming qualification?
Susan Anderson: I am not hearing
many employers say that they feel excluded from how history should
be taught, how English should be taught or what it means to do
an A-level in history, English or indeed languages. From a business
perspective, what we said, which is a matter of record, was that
when we were looking at it—I think that reflecting those
members' priorities was where I started off—we felt that
our priorities were to ensure that more young people left school
with adequate numeracy and literacy, recognising that a level
C in English and maths is a higher level than basic literacy and
numeracy. We would like everybody to get a C in English and maths,
but many young people do not. However, they were also not arriving
in the workplace—or indeed, as Mary said, in their preparation
for life—with proper, functional numeracy and literacy skills.
Our first priority was to ensure that more young people achieved
functional numeracy and literacy, which is why we spent a lot
of time defining what we meant by those skills. Our other concerns
involve this whole issue of STEM, which I keep coming back to.
Not enough young people are coming out of our universities with
the STEM degrees that business needs to be globally competitive,
as Benedict said, and to ensure that we continue to maintain our
status as a nation, so that, whether in pharmaceuticals, engineering
or air space sectors, we are at the forefront of technology. For
those sectors, we need really good scientists and mathematicians
coming out of our universities. Those are our priorities.
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