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”.

  • Syldon@feddit.uk
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    1 year ago

    Or he could throw some money into our schools so they can be educated better in the earlier years. They have been reducing budgets since coming to power. Will he be adding extra into school budgets to pay for this, and has it been researched as a viable option?

    • ᴇᴍᴘᴇʀᴏʀ 帝@feddit.ukOP
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      1 year ago

      I wouldn’t be surprised if he is considering jumping off a high building. He’s smarter than his two predecessors and must know the game is up and nothing he does at this point matters. They probably play games where they pick a name out of a hat and that person has 30s to come up with a policy to get onto the news.

    • C4d@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      These “Sunak is set to consider / scrap / ban” any old crap headlines just keep on coming. Something will stick to the wall eventually I guess.

  • ᴇᴍᴘᴇʀᴏʀ 帝@feddit.ukOP
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    1 year ago

    Labour said the proposals were an “undeliverable gimmick”.

    At this point it sounds like they’ve got a Wheel of Gimmicks and they are spinning it twice a day.

  • Blake [he/him]@feddit.uk
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    1 year ago

    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.

    • primal_buddhist@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      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.

      • Blake [he/him]@feddit.uk
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        1 year ago

        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.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
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    1 year ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    The government has denied that Mr Sunak is trying to find radical proposals which will help his party in the polls, with No 10 saying this week that the prime minister is focused on long-term solutions.

    Mr Sunak initially suggested the idea of a new baccalaureate qualification during his unsuccessful leadership campaign against Liz Truss last year, and has previously said he wants all young people to study maths to 18.

    Andrew Mitchell, who attends Cabinet in his role as a Foreign Office minister, said he expects Mr Sunak to agree to a significant reform of England’s education system.

    David Robinson, director for post-16 and skills at the Education Policy Institute, said steps to broaden the curriculum were “encouraging”, but added that it would cause an increase in workload for teachers.

    Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the National Education Union, called it a “sketchy proposal” and said teaching was already facing a “recruitment and retention crisis”.

    Shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson accused Mr Sunak of “pursuing short-term headlines” with an “unworkable policy”.


    The original article contains 535 words, the summary contains 172 words. Saved 68%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!