Commenting on the results published today, Nansi
Ellis, Assistant General Secretary of the National Education
Union, said:
“The National Education Union congratulates the many thousands of
students who have succeeded today in their A-Level and vocational
qualifications. It pleases every teacher to see their students
prosper and be able to pursue the next stage of their education,
whether at university or on an apprenticeship.
“Despite funding cuts, teachers have continued to deliver A-Level
and vocational courses of a high quality. This, in spite of sixth
form and further education funding being particularly badly hit
in recent years. It is imperative that additional investment is
made to protect subjects and services. The NEU is a supporter of
the Raise the Rate campaign.
“It is good to see that more students are studying Computing,
Chemistry and Biology at A-Level, all of which are important
subjects to gain access to university or work. It is good that
more female students are taking the sciences at A-Level and have
overtaken male students for the first time. It is very worrying
however, that there continues to be a reduction in the number of
students studying the English subjects, down 35%, and that the
performing and expressive arts entries have dropped by 53%.
Modern Foreign Languages such as French and German also continue
to decline.
“If our students are not taking arts, English and humanities
subjects to A-Level and on to degree level, what happens to
teacher supply in the future? Students should be encouraged to
take a mixture of subjects at A-Level, and not be made to choose
between the STEM subjects and the arts/humanities.
“Grade boundaries are not static and will change year on year to
a greater or lesser extent. Part of that difference is because of
the level of difficulty of the questions in the paper, which has
always been the case.
“Students have recently been subjected to reformed A-Levels,
which take away AS staging and, in many subjects, coursework.
They also push students towards a single exam at the end of the
course. Our recent survey (1) shows that NEU members have
witnessed a very clear worsening in mental health problems among
students (55%) since the introduction of new A-Levels, and a
third (37%) are convinced that they less accurately reflect a
student’s true ability. Today’s results must be considered in
this context. We are moving away from a system which engages and
encourages learners, and this is having worrying effects on the
very people the system is supposed to prepare for the outside
world.”
ENDS
Editor’s Note
(1) NEU poll shows damaging impact of A-Level reforms on
students’ mental health and engagement, 14 August
2019:https://neu.org.uk/press-releases/neu-poll-shows-damaging-impact-level-reforms-students-mental-health-and-engagement
