Tories backtrack over pledge on core GCSEs

MINISTERS have climbed down on plans to make the vast majority of teenagers study GCSEs in core academic subjects by 2020.

The key Michael Gove reform, aimed at making qualifications more rigorous, has been pushed back to 2025 to allow schools more time to implement it.

It means an additional five years of pupils not having to take all the core GCSE ‘facilitating subjects’ which are favoured by the elite Russell Group universities.

The Government’s new target is for 75 per cent of pupils to sit the courses that make up the English Baccalaureate (EBacc) by 2022, and for 90 per cent to do so by 2025. The EBacc is made up of English, maths, science, history or geography, and a language. It was devised by the Tories as a way to ensure less privileged children were taking the same challenging GCSEs that those in private schools were able to take.

Some state schools had been entering pupils for easier subjects to improve their grades – especially avoiding languages.

But this was stunting the pupils’ chances of getting into a top university, as many will only consider those with GCSEs and A-levels in traditional ‘ tough’ subjects. But the revised proposals – mentioned in the party’s manifesto – were confirmed in a long-awaited Government response to a consultation that closed 18 months ago.

Education Secretary Justine Greening said the Tories still wanted ‘the majority of pupils – irrespective of background – [to] have access to this core academic suite of GCSEs, which is central to a broad and balanced curriculum’.