Evaluation, statistics and OR

14-19 Diplomas - the way of the future or the emperor's new clothes?

And to be honest, I am not sure which way I lean on this one.

I am concerned about A levels, in that I don't think they are a consistent currency for measuring educational attainment.  I did three back in 1981, failed one and got two in those days reasonable passes, but passes that would now be considered not good enough.  They were hard, and required interpretation and thought, or so I thought then.  I did another one in 2004 and got straight As, and could see the marks I had gained for each section of the assessment, so where I had done slightly less well and where I had been frankly embarrassingly good.  Now as this was an A level in French and I have never been good at verb endings or gender agreements between adjectives and nouns and have trouble remembering what gender things are anyway, this brilliance was a bit worrying.  I also didn't feel I needed to interpret or analyse anything (no learned debate of Candide or Les Enfants de Siecle).

I am also concerned that A-levels and those that teach them are, with the best will in the world, a bit removed from the work arena.  I can quite see that something is needed for those who don't want to leave school at 16, or whose parents are unlikely to let them leave school at 16, that is a bit more grounded in the real world therefore.  Thus the Diplomas in Manufacturing for example, particularly as they are influenced by the needs of real employers, should be a good grounding in practical knowledge and skills that can assist in employment and also in developing the talents of young people.

I think I agree with the CBI in that Diplomas in Humanities and Languages may therefore not instantly spring out as priority areas for development.  Equally the problem of running a dual system, with private and grammar schools working with A-levels as the gold standard and non-selective schools and colleges running with Diplomas will inevitably bring or reinforce a two-tier system.

On the whole I am not wedded to A-levels, so I would be happy to see them go once and for all, if there was a system with the full range of subjects available for young people to access.  Whether anyone will see the need for a Diploma option in Latin or Ancient Greek, it must be offered in order to provide the full catalogue of options.

What I find unhelpful in the whole debate, are those people and organisations that trash the concept of Diplomas without any real knowledge.  If they continue to get bad press before they start, those young people who do them will be stigmatised, and Diplomas could fail without being given a chance.  The A level isn't a sacrosanct gold standard, any more than the O level was.  Stop sneering and see how young people and employers work with the new qualifications and assess it in 10 years time.

Numeracy and Skills for Life

The National Audit Office has officially congratulated the Government on the achievement of its 2004 and 2007 Skills for Life targets and says it is well on the way to achieving the 2010 target too.  This is good news.

Personally I would thank the Government a bit less and instead heap praise on the LSC, learning providers, community and voluntary groups and individuals who have delivered those achievements.  I would also praise the individuals who overcame barriers of all sorts to improve their basic skills - be that finding the time to do the learning, making that first scary step into a college or provider, or even more daringly, admitting to someone that they needed help with something as fundamental as literacy skills.

I pick out literacy skills because that is where the main achievements have been made and where the most progress and impact has come from.  A further swathe of learners will have achieved English as a Second or Other Language qualifications, enabling them to function better in British society.  Where the policy has almost failed however, is to improve the numeracy skills of the adult population - the scale of the problem is greater, but to date the impact has been less.

In part, this has to be laid at the feet of a society where it is acceptable to say "I'm no good at maths".  I would be mortified to say that but I do remember class mates at school saying that, and the easiest way to get people off a business studies degree is to face them with a pretty basic quantitative methods paper, which many fail because it's numbers, and answers are right or wrong, though you can get the odd mark for getting a method right.

Another key reason is the way maths is often presented as a scary separate subject rather than integral to life as we know it.  Construction courses include maths for calculations for how much plaster or tiles to cover a wall, mechanics courses include maths in terms of quantities of lubricants and mixes of washes and anti-freeze, cookery is all about measurement and proportion, even art and drawing includes geometry and proportion.  The more obvious subjects such as economics, accountancy, management all need a good grasp of numbers and what they mean.  While betting slips, the pools, darts and football all bring a certain need for arithmetic and statistics, God's own game of cricket has inspired some of the most complex mathematical modelling that the man in the street will encounter.

So why is it acceptable to say you are no good at numbers?  Grab life, your leisure time, your finances and your work and take pride in being able to do maths.