Secondary Education in UK – Core academic vs vocational subjects

From this September, all pupils at secondary school will have to study English, a language, maths, science and history or geography at General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE). This is the English Baccalaureate, or Ebacc, which education minister Nicky Morgan has insisted are core academic subjects that should be taken by all children. 

The director of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), John Cridland, does not approve: he has called for GCSEs to be phased out and replaced with an exam system that gives equal value to vocational subjects.

In defence of the government reform, it should enable young people to have a fairly broad education up to the age of 16 that does not restrict them in their future choices. It is a big change from the past when students could take a wide range of “vocational” subjects at GCSE. These were not regarded as useful for anyone except schools that wanted to boost their headline results by getting weaker students to take exams in subjects that were easier to pass. This was criticised strongly in the Wolf report in 2011 about vocational education and has since been changed.

Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor. Read the whole story at  The divide is growing between what employers and ministers want students to study.