One million pupils 'failed by Labour exam policy'
· Study shows GCSE 'lost generation'
· Parents urge better skills training
Anushka Asthana, education correspondent
Sunday April 20, 2008
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,2275074,00.html
The Observer
A pupil in a maths lesson at a school in London. Photograph: Graham
Turner
An 'entire generation' of school children has been let down by the
Labour government, a new study has claimed. The re****t, by the Bow
Group, reveals that almost a million teenagers failed to achieve even
the lowest grade, a G, in five GCSEs since the party came to power.
While ministers have boasted about the rise in the number of pupils
achieving five C grades at GCSE, they have failed to highlight the
growing numbers at the bottom of the pile. Over the past decade the
number of teenagers walking away from school without five basic G
grades, including in English and maths, has risen - despite billions
of pounds of investment in education. Almost 90,000 pupils fell into
the category last year, the highest figure since 1998.
The re****t - which covers English schools between 1997 to 2007 - also
found there were 3.9 million pupils, close to 60 per cent of the
total, who had not gained five C grades at GCSE, including in the core
subjects of English and maths. Although a G is the lowest pass
possible at GCSE, achieving five C grades is considered a 'minimum
benchmark' by employers. The re****t, The Failed Generation; the real
cost of education under Labour, which will be published tomorrow by
the right-of-centre think-tank, has calculated that more than £70bn of
taxpayers' money had been spent educating almost four million young
people who fell short of the basic grades.
'Ten years after "education, education, education" became Labour's
mantra, millions of pupils have failed to gain the qualifications they
need under the government's watch,' said Chris Skidmore, chairman of
the Bow Group and author of the re****t.
'Last year, nearly one in six pupils did not even get five GCSEs of
any grade - the highest figures since 10 years ago. These pupils were
five when Labour came to power. There are simply no more excuses for
this level of persistent and sustained record of failure. We have
witnessed a decade of disappointment in which an entire generation of
pupils have been let down.'
According to Skidmore, employers have warned that young people without
five good GCSEs, grade C or above, risk not getting jobs. A survey by
the Learning and Skills Council found that more than 20 per cent of
employers would not recruit teenagers without the grades or a
vocational equivalent while 15 per cent said they would ignore the CVs
completely.
In preparing his re****t, Skidmore calculated how much more pupils
could have earned had they achieved better grades. Using data that
indicated people earn, on average, £2,261 more a year with five Cs at
GCSE than those without, he found the 3.9 million pupils had already
foregone billions of pounds. The figure would continue to rise as they
grew older and their income continued to trail behind their peers, he
added.
The re****t also highlighted the fact that spending on each pupil had
risen dramatically since Labour came to power, from £2,910 in 1997 to
£5,080 last year. 'While spending per pupil has increased by £2,170 -
an increase of 75 per cent since 1997/98, the percentage of pupils
obtaining five good GCSEs including English and maths has only
increased by 9 per cent,' the re****t states. 'The cost to the taxpayer
of funding pupils who then failed to gain five good GCSEs including in
English and maths is extremely high.'
Last week, parent groups said it was time for ministers to question
what was 'going wrong'. 'You could say that if they were not going to
achieve those grades, why did we try to make them?' said Margaret
Morrissey, of the National Confederation of Parent Teacher
Associations. 'Why did we not give them a vocational education that
could have helped them life-long? You could say that the system is
wasting taxpayers' money because we are giving these children the
wrong type of education.'
Morrissey argued that there would always be some children who were not
'academically great' but who could be successful with the correct
sup****t. 'They may have gone through a traumatic time just to achieve
that G,' she said. 'Shouldn't we be providing an alternative for
youngsters, so they can come out of school with useful qualifications
and a little bit of self-esteem?'
But a spokesman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families
hit back, pointing to the Labour party's successes in education.
'In 1997 over half of all secondary schools were failing to get 30 per
cent or more of their pupils to what we now see as the benchmark for
any teenager - five good GCSEs or equivalent with English and maths,'
he said.
'This is now down to a fifth of schools. If that trend continues,
there should be no schools under this level by 2012. We now have
70,000 more young people leaving school with five good GCSEs including
English and maths than did so 10 years ago. Schools at the lowest
level are receiving intensive sup****t.'
==========================
So a 'G' grade is 30 per cent? Even a $3 a day (10 hours) factory
worker in China is smarter than that. It's probably no better in US
schools. Their top students are still among the top. But they can't
find base level workers who can understand simple instructions,
operate simple machines or add 2+2. No country can prosper if there
is are plenty of chiefs and not enough indians.
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