The new English Baccalaureate, which UK education minister Michael Gove launched last week, was not in the best interests of pupils or teachers and would contribute to an “overly structural and increasingly centralist” system, Mr Russell said.
“It’s up to others to justify what they are doing,” he told delegates at the Scottish Learning Festival in Glasgow when questioned about his views on the EBacc.
“The vast majority of educators in Scotland will say you want to measure rich attainment, you don’t just measure a single snapshot,” he added.
Mr Gove, who went to school in Scotland, said the qualification would challenge “grade inflation” by cutting the value of coursework, or even abolishing it altogether, and reintroducing more difficult end-of-year exams.
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