THOUSANDS of teenagers were yesterday consumed by a mixture of relief and joy as two years' hard work culminated in results that will take them to university and the prospect of a bright future.
But scenes of glee at strings of A-grades led swiftly to renewed soul-searching about whether academic standards have been maintained. Over the course of the day, an equally vigorous defence was mounted by schools who complain that this argument is d
emoralising to students and teachers who are working harder than ever.
In recent years, Ministers have started taking to the airwaves in advance of results day to try to pre-empt this now annual debate. This year, while they have publicly deplored the row over standards, privately they may well welcome it.
Because as long as public attention is focused on comparing the achievements of today's A-level students with their predecessors, there will be rather less scrutiny of the Government's plans for post-16 education – which are rapidly descending into chaos and confusion.
The roots of the problem, as has so often been the case with Labour in office, lie in its decision to put electoral considerations before sensible government.
Shortly before the last General Election, Sir Mike Tomlinson, the former chief inspector of schools, completed a report which recommended bringing academic and vocational qualifications into a single unified system.
The benefits were clear – an end to the second-class status of vocational education and the replacement of the alphabet soup of qualifications available to teenagers with a coherent structure that employers, parents and students could all understand.
The drawback was it would mean ditching the A-level as the "gold standard" of English school education, an exam understood
and treasured by large sections of middle England.
With an election around the corner, the Government ducked what was bound to be a difficult debate and insisted that A-levels would remain but, to cover their embarrassment, also announced a new system of diplomas to run in parallel.
Winning the 2005 election obliged the Government to turn this politically convenient fudge into something that would actually work in practice. As the first students to take the new diplomas prepare to begin their studies next month, there is little evidence of success. In fact, the situation has become so confused that it is hard to distinguish what the Government is trying to achieve even for those closely involved.
Supporters of preserving A-levels argue that there is a conspiracy afoot to introduce a version of the Tomlinson proposals by the back door, most notably by allowing diplomas to creep on to the academic turf currently occupied by A-levels.
The first diplomas will be in vocational subjects, but last year Schools Secretary Ed Balls unveiled plans to include languages, sciences and humanities. According to this theory, students will be coaxed on to diplomas so removing the need to explicitly kill off A-levels. Instead, it will be death by 1,000 cuts, turning the review of A-levels, now planned for 2013, into a formality.
There are at least two sides to every conspiracy theory and, inevitably therefore, supporters of diplomas have a rather different take on the same facts. They accuse the Government of not properly supporting the introduction of this new qualification, effectively leaving schools and colleges to make it work. Without backing, few students will take the diploma and it will fail.
Sadly, the more likely explanation for the chaos is not that Ministers are working to a secret and devious plan but that they have no real plan at all.
Andrew Broadhurst, chairman of the teaching union, Voice, offered the most credible analysis when he described the introduction of diplomas as "haphazard". Teachers, he said, have little idea of what was involved and on the eve of the diplomas introduction, it was still
not clear how they will be regarded
by universities.
For all the concerns about the academic rigour of A-levels, there remains considerable public support for maintaining them as the gold standard of English school education.
The Tomlinson proposals for exam reform were politically toxic because they involved the effective scrapping of the exam. But at least they were a coherent blueprint for change, the result of wide-ranging discussions with all interested parties.
Instead, the Government now finds itself making major changes to the exam system but can offer no clear view as to where its reforms
are heading.
The result is that, next month, thousands of students will start a new qualification with no certainty over its future value, taught by staff who do not understand it themselves.
The students recovering from their celebrations today at least have the comfort of knowing that the exams they took, whatever their flaws, remain the recognised arbiter of academic achievement and suitability for university study. Their successors, however, face a confusing choice between A-levels and diplomas, not to mention the international baccalaureate that continues to lurk in the background.
Labour inherited uncertainty over the value and future of A-levels. Its botched reforms of the exam system are only succeeding in making matters even worse.
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