Education secretary's major reform of the examination system for school-leavers scheduled for introduction in September 2015

This article is more than 8 years old

This article is more than 8 years old

Education secretary Michael Gove is set to announce a major overhaul of school exams with a return to tougher O-level style qualifications in the place of GCSEs, it has been reported.

The move will be the biggest reform of the examination system for school-leavers in a generation and will be unveiled on Tuesday, according to the Mail on Sunday.

The plans include getting rid of modular assessment, reintroducing the traditional three-hour exam at the end of two years of study and limiting the number of top grades that are awarded, the paper said.

The new system would be introduced from September 2015, with the first of the new-style exams taking place in 2017.

There has also been speculation that in the future there would only be one exam board provider per subject after Gove said last week that competition had had "malign effects".

The Department for Education would only say that an announcement would be made shortly.

The reforms have placed a major strain on coalition relations afterGove's plans to bring back O-levels were leaked in June before they had even been broached with Liberal Democrat deputy prime minister Nick Clegg.

Documents showed that the education secretary wanted to replace GCSEs with O-levels in traditional academic subjects such as English, maths, the humanities and science.

The changes would also see less able pupils taking simpler qualifications, similar to old-style CSEs, and the national curriculum for secondary schools abolished.

Teaching leaders have warned that such a move would see a return to "two-tier" schooling, writing off large swathes of the population, and the Lib Dems were infuriated by the idea.

Clegg said neither he nor David Cameron had been aware of the plans and indicated that they would not go ahead without Lib Dem support.

He said he was against "anything that would lead to a two-tier system where children at quite a young age are somehow cast on a scrapheap".

After extensive discussions about the proposals, however, the Lib Dem leader is expected to join Gove in a show of unity at the launch of a consultation on the reforms on Tuesday.