At the latest Conservative Party Conference, Rishi Sunak announced plans to replace A levels and T levels with a new qualification known as the Advanced British Standard (ABS).
A levels, until this Conservative Party Conference, were heralded as the “gold standard” for education and are now in their 73rd year, have frequently been decried as the “old standard” in the face of newer international qualifications.
However, there are concerns that should the ABS fail, independent schools that are not obliged to take up the ABS, could easily continue with the “gold standard” A levels, as many have done with the new GCSE system.
The result could see a widening of the gap between state and private school attainment levels, a gap exacerbated during the pandemic, as demonstrated in a report from The Bridge Group.
A government statement has described the ABS as bringing “the best of A levels and T levels into a single qualification” and will see post-16 students study a minimum of five subjects, with the option to ‘major’ or ‘minor’ in these subjects.
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ABS students will have compulsory literacy and numeracy study up to 18.
The qualification – which is not expected to be rolled out until 2032 – will also increase the number of taught hours over a two-year period to 1,475 (200 hours more than a typical A level student), and is touted as bringing teaching closer “to countries like Denmark, the Netherlands, and Norway”.
However Shadow Secretary for Education, Bridget Philipsen, calls the announcement the “latest undeliverable gimmick” from the Conservative party.
Government critics have been quick to point out that the announcement came from Downing Street, not the Department of Education.
A former Special Advisor to Michael Gove took to Twitter to denounce the plan as a “Staggering failure to understand our education system”.
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Likewise, the Sixth Form Colleges Association (SFCA), have voiced concerns over the Government’s priorities, pointing to a report by the UCL Institute for Education, that highlighted that funding for Sixth Form Colleges (SFCs) was 15 per cent lower in real terms today than it was in 2010.
In a response from the SFCA, “ [current issues] such as teacher recruitment and retention are two of the building blocks required to make the sort of broad curriculum envisaged in the Advanced British Standard a reality.
“We think the government’s priority should be to get the basics right first, and then to engage in a genuinely inclusive dialogue about what the sixth form curriculum of the future should look like”.
It’s believed that the ABS will do away with the T Level qualification which at only 3 years old, was designed to parallel the A level through work placements for a technical vocation, in March it received a £30 million boost to increase its low uptake.
“Prime Minister Rishi Sunak visits Eramus Darwin Academy” by UK Prime Minister is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.