EVER since the cap on the number of children who could be awarded top grades in their GCSE exams was abolished in 1988, the proportion of pupils attaining these heights has relentlessly increased. This week that inexorable progress was revealed to be illusory. Three separate studies showed how Britain is failing its schoolchildren--and shortchanging the country in the process.
All rich countries rightly expect their young people to be literate and numerate by the time they leave school. Some aspire to loftier goals such as scientific prowess, fluency in a foreign language and a rough grasp of history. In a report released on December 1st, Reform, a think-tank, pointed out the poverty of Britain's ambitions for its children.
Students at 16 are required to take just three academic subjects--English, maths and science--and many study no others. Even if they leave school with vocational qualifications too, they are ill placed to better themselves. Employers consistently value the ability to think above skills that can be learned on the job, and universities that accept students with vocational qualifications do so only after admissions tutors have reassured themselves that the young person in front of them is no dullard. Allowing pupils to choose vocational courses over academic ones--indeed, encouraging it, as vocational qualifications are treated in published school-league tables as if they were worth twice as much as academic ones--does no favours to children from deprived backgrounds. Instead it segregates the workforce and impairs social mobility. Bad at any time, this is appalling now that globalisation has increased competition in the workplace.
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