Rishi Sunak wants to scrap A-levels and replace them with a single qualification that includes compulsory English and maths, bringing upheaval to sixth-form education in England that would last a decade.
The new baccalaureate-style Advanced British Standard, which Sunak announced in his speech to the Conservative party conference in Manchester, would also kill off the T-level vocational qualification the government launched just three years ago.
Sunak told delegates: “We will introduce the new rigorous, knowledge-rich, Advanced British Standard which will bring together A-levels and T-levels into a new single qualification for our school leavers.”
The proposals would increase the number of classroom hours by 15% for most sixth-formers, adding about an hour a day, while requiring students to study “some form of English and maths” until the age of 18.
Rather than three A-levels or a single T-level course, students would be able to study five subjects, including “major” and “minor” subjects from both technical and academic options.
But details of how the new qualification would work remain sparse. The Department for Education (DfE) said a consultation document would be issued this autumn, followed by a white paper next year.
The DfE’s briefing document, released after Sunak’s speech, said the qualification “will take a decade to deliver”, meaning that children who started primary school reception classes last month would be the first to be affected by the reform in 2033-34, assuming it is adopted.
Some experts welcomed the opportunity for students to study a wider range of subjects, but others were sceptical, questioning how widely different courses could be merged into a single qualification.
Sunak said the additional 195 hours of teaching would allow subjects to be studied in the same depth as current A-levels. Union leaders said the longer hours and extra classes in maths and English would overstretch the teaching workforce.
Daniel Kebede, the general secretary of the National Education Union, said Sunak’s plans were “out of touch with reality”, given that schools were already short of 4,300 maths and 2,600 English teachers.
“Post-16 curriculum reform is worthy of debate, but simply increasing the number of hours taught would require an additional 5,300 teachers. This year the government missed their recruitment target for secondary teachers by 48%,” he said.
Sunak’s proposals included increased tax-free retention bonuses of up to £30,000 over the first five years for school and further education college teachers in key subjects. But without more staff, Sunak’s plans “are likely to prove a pipedream”, according to Geoff Barton, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders.
The proposal to terminate T-levels, the flagship qualification designed and launched by the current government, is a big U-turn after years of investment by ministers and colleges in creating a new vocational course to compete with A-levels.
But T-levels failed to capture the public’s imagination despite extensive promotion, with new courses plagued by delays while colleges complained of difficulties in attracting qualified staff and finding employers willing to offer students the lengthy placements required.
The proposals came as the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) reported that the budgets of England’s state schools were being eroded by rising costs.
“School funding per pupil is in fact increasing by only just about enough to keep pace with overall school costs. Policy debate should reflect the acute pressures on school budgets,” said Luke Sibieta, an IFS research fellow.
