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Reform to come: 'No one wants to see A-levels becoming a political football'
Confusion reigns over what the government’s planned reforms to the A-level system will entail for engineering, and there has been a “missed opportunity” to engage with manufacturing firms on the issue, Engineering UK has claimed.
Paul Jackson, the organisation’s chief executive, said there was “a lot of confusion over what the reforms are – and what to do about them”. In April, the Department for Education announced reforms to physics, chemistry and biology A-levels, new versions of which are to be taught from September 2015. Maths and further maths are also set to be reformed, but a year later.
Labour has said that it will reverse the policy if it comes to power in the election in 2015.
New A-levels are set to be “linear” in nature, meaning that all assessments will be taken at the end of two years. Controversially, AS-levels are set to be “decoupled” from A-levels, so they will no longer count towards a final A-level. Some fear this means universities and schools will no longer want the qualification. Currently, AS-levels are regarded as an important barometer of a student’s progress towards university, said Jackson. “AS-levels look like they are pretty much gone unless universities insist on them.”
Paul Dodd, director of education and learning (reform), at A-level and GCSE awarding body OCR, said there was a “strong case” that A-levels needed to be updated but that concerns remained over the scale and speed of change. “No one in education wants to see A-levels becoming a political football,” he said. He agreed that engineering companies needed to be involved in reform and suggested that they try to have input into a new design and technology A-level being developed for first teaching in 2016.
The new science A-levels are intended to have stronger mathematical and quantitative content. This could benefit students going on to study engineering at university, said Engineering UK.
Jackson also said that there was a case for introducing a stronger scientific element to the new maths A-levels. “From what we’ve seen so far, the link from the sciences to maths is happening; the link from the maths to the sciences possibly isn’t. Both sides are important to engineering.”
There were also concerns that the practical elements of science study would carry less weight under the new system, he said. Jackson added: “I don’t think people have been clamouring for improvements. I haven’t seen employers calling for a dramatic overhaul of the curriculum.”
Dodd said the status of AS-levels was causing teachers a lot of concern. The government is keen that students do not undertake assessments during the course but at the end. “The view was that if you have too many assessments it takes away teaching time,” he said. But many university courses, including those in engineering, are modular in nature. “Training teachers to structure their courses in a linear way is potentially quite challenging.”
Dodd added: “I would encourage firms to become more involved in the stakeholder groups as we redesign the design and technology qualifications.” If there is a change in government next year, he hopes it will consider retaining reformed A-levels if they prove successful.