The Advanced British Standard is at least 10 years away and probably won’t happen at all – and yet it is still distracting government from the real priorities that need addressing now, says Pepe Di’Iasio
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I doubt whether the Advanced British Standard – the government’s only idea for education – is at the top of your in-tray.

To recap, this is the plan to replace A levels and T levels with a baccalaureate-style post-16 qualification.

But you’re probably far more worried about the here and now – staff shortages, lack of funding, a crisis in SEND provision, behaviour, and attendance issues.

The prospect of a reform to qualifications that is at least 10 years away and probably won’t actually happen at all is not even a dot on the horizon.

Nevertheless, a team of civil servants is working on the ABS and the proposals are going through a laborious consultation exercise.

Ofqual last week gave its verdict, and it won’t have made happy reading for prime minister Rishi Sunak, who breathlessly announced the ABS out of the blue in his Conservative Party Conference speech last year.

The qualifications watchdog concluded that the ABS “requires change on a scale unprecedented in England in recent decades” and that it would “require significant investment of resource across all parts of the education system” (Ofqual, 2024).

As the government’s unwillingness to invest in education is tantamount to negligence, and there aren’t enough staff in the system for existing needs, Ofqual’s observations seem something of a stumbling block.

The whole problem with the ABS is that it was a case of cart before horse. Instead of sitting down with people who actually work in education and discussing how to further improve literacy and numeracy and bridge the divide between academic and vocational pathways – a worthy endeavour – the prime minister simply decided he had the solution.

Officials now have to go along with this charade – because it is their job to implement the prime minister’s wishes – and try to make the ABS work even though it is an obvious dud.

So, what should have happened?

Well, the obvious answer would have been to do what we at ASCL have been advocating for years and which is now Labour Party policy – and that is to commission an independent review of the curriculum and accountability system.

That will enable us to look at what we teach children and young people as a whole – rather than the piecemeal approach of ABS in focusing entirely on key stage 5.

After all, if you want to improve literacy and numeracy, the place to start is in the early years, because we know that’s when attainment gaps first develop.

It stands to reason that if we bolstered provision at that point and better supported primary schools – with, say, enough money and enough teachers – that would pay dividends later down the line.

That makes much more sense than trying to close those gaps through extra maths and English for 16 and 17-year-olds.

We might also introduce a new style of qualification for these key subjects – a certificate of proficiency similar to a driving licence which is taken at the point of readiness and helps to build skills and confidence rather than acting as a cliff-edge in the way GCSEs do.

We might also consider that the current emphasis on academic subjects pre-16 is hardly helpful to the idea of boosting vocational and technical education post-16 or providing parity of esteem.

It might be a great deal more effective to champion both routes at the age of 14 as options of equal merit and importance and change the accountability system so that schools aren’t penalised for offering that flexibility.

And that might in turn help with other issues around students becoming disengaged and the behaviour and attendance issues that can arise from that disengagement.

Meanwhile, the ABS feels like something out of a brainstorming session in which people bandy around phrases like “blue-sky thinking” without any actual thinking taking place.

But what makes the whole thing particularly annoying is that this is happening when there is an absolute crisis in the education sector – funding, recruitment, retention, and myriad problems that are happening right here and right now.

It is a classic example of fiddling while Rome burns. The ABS will soon be merely a document on a Whitehall bookshelf. However, the legacy of government underinvestment in our schools and colleges will be with us for a lot longer.

  • Pepe Di’Iasio is the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders.

 

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