Rishi Sunak is considering a major reform of A-levels in England which could see the introduction of a new “British baccalaureate”.
The prime minister’s plans could include the compulsory study of maths and English up to the age of 18, according to newspaper reports.
The shake-up of A-levels would be controversial - but no final decision has been taken.
Labour said the proposals were an “undeliverable gimmick”.
The concept that the government should have any say whatsoever in education is absolutely fucking ridiculous to me. Just give schools the money they need to run effectively and let educators work with humanities and scientists to design the system and keep politicians the fuck away from it.
Seems sensible but if we imagine that by some measure, like PISA, our children seemed to be stagnating or going backwards, who will be accountable? Then a PM will say, elect me and i will take responsibility.
It’s annoying but also inevitable for as long as we demand that our PMs fix things and be accountable.
I can guarantee that if the schools are well funded by the government and ran by teachers, the UK’s PISA scores would be among the best in the world.
Obviously you can’t guarantee that and when a politician says such a thing then we still want them to take accountability. How do you guarantee it we would ask and they would say, I will blah blah blah. But what they can’t say is i would hand over some money but not direct how we set standards or curriculum or whatever.
I am with you, personally, just pointing out the political difficulties.