CBI calls for diploma rethink

Business leaders have called for a rethink on government plans for new academic diplomas that could replace A-levels.

The CBI said on Monday that while it retains support for vocational diplomas, extending them to all school-leavers could risk "undermining the integrity" of traditional academic subjects such as humanities and science.

The qualifications are set to begin being taught in schools from September this year, with the aim of broadening the curriculum and boosting the number of pupils studying science and languages.

But the CBI warned that "members fear they would not have any greater value to young people or to employers than the existing GCSEs or A-levels, and would instead be an unnecessary distraction".

Director general Richard Lambert said: "Given the increasingly global challenges the UK faces all sides accept we cannot simply protect the status quo in the education system, but make sure it is evolving.

"However employers understand and value GCSEs and A-levels and firmly believe these should remain a cornerstone of the education system."

However schools minister Jim Knight defended the plans, which he said the CBI had previously supported.

"I am surprised at this negative response from the CBI on our three subject-based diplomas, given that Richard Lambert shared the platform with [secretary of state] Ed Balls and myself when we launched them last October," he said.

"The CBI were also represented on the expert group which approved our qualifications strategy."

Shadow schools secretary Michael Gove said: "By pushing ahead with plans for academic diplomas the government risks undermining the existing diplomas and it threatens the future of GCSEs and A-levels."

Stakeholder response: National Union of Teachers

Christine Blower, acting general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said: "No one should be surprised about the CBI’s untimely intervention against the modern foreign languages, science and humanities Diplomas. Sir Digby Jones, former director-general of the CBI, pulled the rug from under Mike Tomlinson which in turn gave a dog whistle to Tony Blair and Ruth Kelly to block the Tomlinson Report.

"The CBI has consistently taken a profoundly pessimistic view that young people at an early age should be sorted into vocational and academic tracks of learning.

"A lesson for the Government should be that it ought to be careful about the friends it chooses."