Return of the O-Level: Gove announces radical plan to scrap GCSEs 'to ensure UK has a world-class education system' but lack of consultation angers Lib Dems

Under Gove's plan, class of 2013 will be last to sit GCSEs



New exams will be toughest in the world



Top secret plans revealed in leaked documents seen by the Mail

Gove set for collision course with teaching unions, local authorities and Lib Dems

The Education Secretary accused of attempting a 'knee-jerk return to a nostalgic ‘golden age’ of O-levels

Education secretary Michael Gove has drawn up plans to overhaul the entire exam system and curriculum

Proposals to axe GCSEs and return to an O-level style exams will ensure an education system that compares with most rigorous in the world, Michael Gove told MPs.

The Education Secretary denied claims from critics that the plans to tear up the current exam system as well as abolishing the National Curriculum would create a two-tier system, telling the Commons that there was already a divide between the best and worst schools.

But the plans have not only met with anger from Labour and teachers' unions, they have threatened to open a fresh rift in the Government after it emerged that Nick Clegg and his colleagues had only learned of the idea when they read the Daily Mail today.

The proposals could see less-able pupils taking simpler qualifications similar to old-style CSEs and the end of the national curriculum.

But the Liberal Democrats dismissed the possibility of a return to the 'two-tier' system of the 1950s, saying no-one outside of Tory Cabinet minister Mr Gove’s office appeared to have known it was being considered.

'What is reported looks like a huge upheaval for very modest gains,' the source said.

'The main problem we have with this is it looks like it sets far too low an aspiration for our young people.

'Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems do not want to return to the divisions we saw in the 1950s.'

The source said the party would not accept a policy which would leave 'a large number of children behind at a relatively young age'.

'We are very, very hostile to something that looks like it is going to return to the two-tier system of the past,' they added.

The Education Secretary was also accused of attempting a 'knee-jerk return to a nostalgic ‘golden age’ of O-levels.

But this 'golden age' is nothing more than a myth, as many teenagers left school with no qualifications, school leaders said.

Summoned to the Commons to answer an urgent question after the plans were leaked to the Mail, Mr Gove denied Labour claims the move was a return to the past.

Under Mr Gove's plans GCSEs will 'disappear' from schools within the next few years

'Far from it, these are an attempt to ensure our education system stands comparison with the world's most rigorous,' he said.

'While there were undoubtedly improvements in our schools and by our teachers over the course of the last 20 years, those improvements were not sufficient to ensure that we kept pace with other jurisdictions.'



The proposals seen by the Mail suggested that from September 2014, pupils will begin studying for 'explicitly harder' exams in English, maths, physics, chemistry and biology.



Tough O-levels will also be drawn up in history, geography and modern languages.



The new exams will 'meet or exceed the highest standards in the world for that age group'.



Under his revolutionary plans:



GCSEs will 'disappear' from schools within the next few years

The National Curriculum in secondary schools will be abolished

The requirement that pupils obtain five good GCSEs graded A* to C will be scrapped

Less intelligent pupils will sit simpler exams, similar to the old CSEs

O-level pupils will sit the same gold standard paper nationwide from a single exam board

Mr Gove believes the creation of GCSEs by the Tories in the 1980s was a 'historic mistake' that has 'failed pupils' and led to the collapse of standards through grade inflation and a proliferation of 'Mickey Mouse' courses.

But the proposals to ditch GCSEs in favour of O-levels were also met with widespread anger today from the teaching profession and education experts.

The leaked plans resulted in an outcry that it would lead to a two-tier system and thousands of teenagers being branded as failures.

Christine Blower, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said: 'Michael Gove’s continual criticism of GCSEs as a ‘dumbed down’ examination is not only incorrect but also very offensive to those pupils and teachers who achieve great results every year.



In the dark: It is believed that Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg knew nothing of Mr Gove's plans until reading the Daily Mail this morning





'Getting rid of GCSEs and replacing them with the old O-level and CSE qualifications could easily lower aspirations and exacerbate inequalities in society.'

Dr Mary Bousted, general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, said: 'It sounds like Michael Gove is making a joke in poor taste at the expense of pupils and teachers.



'Quite who is supposed to benefit from a return to new look O-levels and CSEs and a two-tier exam system? Where is the evidence that this will be an improvement?



'We want all children to be challenged, achieve their potential and gain the skills they need to progress in education and get jobs, so support good quality exams.



'But once again Mr Gove is ignoring less academic children and neglecting vocational qualifications which provide pupils with important skills for employment and life after education.



'We question whether Michael Gove really has children’s best interests at heart, or whether his eyes are firmly fixed on test scores for their own sake to push the UK higher up the international education league tables.'



Mr Gove said the Government would issue a consultation paper on its plans for reform shortly.

Anger: ATL general secretary Dr Mary Bousted said: 'It sounds like Michael Gove is making a joke in poor taste at the expense of pupils and teachers'

In the autumn a public consultation will run for 12 weeks. That will clear the way for them to be implemented early next year. None of the plans require an Act of Parliament.



The Education Secretary said: 'We would like to see every student in this country able to take world class qualifications, like the rigorous and respected exams which are taken, for example, by Singapore's students.'

In Singapore students can sit an O-level exam set by Cambridge University.

Mr Gove added: 'We want to tackle the culture of competitive dumbing-down, by making sure that exam boards cannot compete with each other on the basis of how easy their exams are.

'We want a curriculum that prepares all children for success at 16 and beyond, by broadening what is taught in our schools and in improving how it is assessed.'

In a signal that the radical proposals would not be welcomed by all, Mr Gove stressed: 'These are inevitably challenging ambitions which will require careful implementation.

'That is why we wish the conversation about how we raise standards to be broad and inclusive.

'It is in all our interests that all our children do better than before.



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'But while we want a broad conversation, we are also determined to reach a clear conclusion: a state school system in which every child is challenged to do much better, where there are no excuses for failure, where every child is introduced to the best that has been thought and written and given every opportunity to achieve their utmost.'



Mr Gove's proposal is nothing less than an attempt to reverse three decades of academic decline and create a system that Labour could not reverse if its wins power in 2015.



The leaked document seen by the Mail reveals: 'Those starting GCSEs in 2013 are the last pupils who will have to do them.'



This means they will sit their exams in 2015. Between two-thirds and three-quarters of pupils who begin in September 2014 will be expected to take O-levels in English, maths and the sciences in 2016.



There will be individual O-levels in physics, chemistry and biology, instead of a combined sciences qualification.



In a bid to end the slide in standards, pupils will have to study complex subjects like calculus to get an A grade in O-level maths. English literature pupils will be banned from taking set texts into exams and will be expected to write longer essays.



Questions like 'Would you look at the Moon with a microscope or a telescope?' from science GCSEs will be a thing of the past. As well as the return of O-levels, the Government will create a new exam for less able pupils.

When GCSEs were created they were supposed to help less-gifted students.



But Mr Gove believes those teenagers have been encouraged to think that a D, E, F or G grade at GCSE is a 'pass' when the real world treats those grades as a 'fail'.



From 2014, the bottom 25 per cent of pupils will study more straightforward exams in English, maths and science, so they can get a worthwhile qualification.



Questions on these papers will emphasise real life situations like counting change in a shop or reading a railway timetable.



A return to an exam like the old CSE will be controversial, but ministers will point out that 42 per cent of pupils currently fail to get five good GCSEs, the measure by which schools are judged, meaning teachers have no incentive to help them at all.



This autumn, exam boards will enter a competition to win the right to set the first new O-levels. The Department for Education will announce before Christmas which boards will set the English, maths and science O-levels, with the same exam taken nationwide.



This is expected to lead to resistance from boards like Edexcel, who could lose business unless they land the contracts.



Exam boards will also be told to devise new O-levels in history, geography and modern languages.



Mr Gove hopes they will also be ready for pupils beginning study in 2014 but their introduction may take until 2015.



GCSEs will not disappear immediately and schools will be able to continue teaching the English Baccalaureate.



But a document seen by the Mail says: 'The Department for Education expects that existing GCSEs will disappear'.



In order to persuade schools to adopt the new exams in 2014, the Government will scrap the requirement that pupils should seek to obtain five good GCSEs graded A* to C from 2016 – leaving them free to take on the new gold standard O-levels.



Headteachers will also be given sweeping powers to teach what they like when they like. The leaked document says Mr Gove 'will abolish the secondary National Curriculum and not replace it. All existing programmes of study will be withdrawn from September 2013'.



Academies, now more than half of secondary schools, can already roam off the National Curriculum. But by tearing it up, Mr Gove will prevent a future Labour government of changing the law to impose it on academies again.

The Education said the Government plans to give students 'a world-class education and world-class qualifications'.