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Blair's government finally comes out and rejects the central conclusions of the report into the structure of secondary education, after months of briefing and leaking. Tomlinson recommended ditching A levels and introducing a school diploma to incorporate and elevate the status of vocational learning. The government wants to hang on to A levels, presumably because there's still electoral advantage to be had by retaining the "gold standard". Meanwhile the absolute value of A levels continues to decline as almost every student now gets A grades. The Tories have even advocated introducing A+ and A++ (and possibly A+++, who knows?) to account for this generation of "super achievers".

The Guardian; Thursday 24/2/05

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