Children across the region will this week receive their GCSE results,having sat exams for the first time since 2019 due to COVID.
However a report out this morning argues the government should scrap GCSEs and A-levels in order to replace them with qualifications that “encourage breadth of learning” as well as more critical thinking, creativity, communication and problem solving
The report by the Tony Blair institute recommends a new qualification at 18 that involves continuous assessment between 16 and 18.
The report says that the new technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution are profoundly altering society, the economy and the labour market.
In order to thrive in a world increasingly shaped by automation and artificial intelligence (AI), human workers will require skills that complement these technologies – and adapting to them will require a radically different education system.
It says that the education system in England continues to rely heavily on passive forms of learning focused on direct instruction and memorisation.
“Taken together, the current curriculum, mode of assessment and inspection regime drive schools to overemphasise knowledge, and to instil this via a narrow set of methods and subjects.” adding that
“current incentives restrict schools’ leeway to focus on other valuable subjects and skills, instead encouraging rote learning.”
