Like every group of children entering their final school year, they face exams that will have a significant bearing on their futures.

But those starting Year 11 this month are also the Blair Generation.

David Miliband coined the term four years ago when he was Schools Minister to describe those children who started school in 1997, the year Labour came to power. He promised that they would be "the best educated generation in our nation's history". So the achievements of this group next summer will go a long way towards establishing the success or failure of this Government's education policy.

It has to be acknowledged that a massive increase in investment has undoubtedly transformed the schools attended by the Blair generation. Many have been rebuilt and others refurbished. While the value for money secured under PFI contracts remains an issue, the shabby conditions endured by so many pupils in the 1980s have been virtually banished to history.

But Labour's classroom revolution has not stopped there; the weary complaint from so many teachers is that the central feature of this Government's education policy has been perpetual change and the lot of schools over the past decade has been solely to respond to the ever-changing whims and growing demands of Whitehall.

The Government has told teachers what they should teach – and how they should teach it – as well as expecting schools to have an answer to every social problem faced by the Blair generation.

Rising numbers of families with money troubles prompted calls for personal finance lessons for children. Concerns over obesity led to Ministerial promises that schools would teach children how to cook healthy meals. Britain's perceived lack of sporting prowess turned into a crusade to expand school sport. Headteachers were urged to transform their schools into "eco-schools" to combat global warming.

It is surely only a matter of time before the spate of knife crimes among teenagers leads to self-defence lessons appearing on the national curriculum.

The very structure of schools has also been the subject of relentless revolution. Comprehensives, grammar and church schools have been joined by specialist schools, city academies and trusts.

These major changes were supposed to improve standards, but half of pupils still fail to achieve five grade Cs at GCSE level when both English and maths are included the equation.

They were supposed to improve choice, but where is the choice for a child who lives in a rural area or has an aptitude for languages when their local schools specialise in other subjects? They were supposed to increase parental involvement, but it is sponsors who have been handed control of governing bodies.

That has been the experience of the Blair generation. The question now is what is in store for those who will be educated on Brown, Cameron or Clegg's watch? Irrespective of which party wins the election in 2010, it is certain that the scope for even greater spending will be limited at best. In those circumstances, the next government will need to concentrate on securing better value for money and cutting back on unnecessary or unproductive measures.

A good start would be a pledge to stop costly tinkering with structures, and instead focus on what happens in the classroom. If a change is to be made, it should be the abolition of the city academy programme. It started out as a way of bringing in new investment and thinking into state education, but has now become just another convoluted way of allocating resources.

If a school needs a new building, new management or extra money to turn around its performance, they should be provided without the prolonged planning process that is associated with establishing an academy. Dismantling some of the testing and assessment regime could produce educational benefits and save money. Parents and taxpayers deserve to know what is happening in state schools, but there should be no illusion that national testing serves a more noble purpose beyond producing league tables.

Indeed, given the evidence that excessive testing is distorting what happens in the classroom, there is a strong argument for scaling it back. Testing at 11 should be retained to document how far children have progressed in the primary years. The exams taken at 16 serve the same purpose for secondary schools. Testing at seven and 14 should stop.

Another cost-free policy would be for the Government to leave independent schools alone. New Labour scrapped the assisted places scheme, but otherwise managed to resist the temptation to attack those emblems of privilege so hated by the Left.

In recent years, however, private schools have once again found themselves in the firing line, particularly over their charitable status. Independent schools already offer countless bursaries and free places and work with their state counterparts – not to mention educate thousands of children at no cost to the taxpayer. Haranguing them to do more is merely political point scoring that distracts from efforts to improve schools.

But perhaps the most urgent action all parties should commit to is to restore confidence in the examination system. This Government's decision to set up the regulator Ofqual is a good first step but the debate over A-levels, GCSEs and now the new diplomas has moved beyond the annual hand-wringing over whether academic standards are being maintained. It is no longer clear what purpose these exams serve. GCSEs will over time become redundant as a school-leaving exam, given that the compulsory education age is rising to 18 and teachers have long complained that the gap between this test and A-levels is too large for it to serve any real academic purpose.

A-levels exist primarily to assess suitability for university but so many high grades are now achieved it is impossible to distinguish between the best candidates. In desperation, some schools are turning to the international baccalaureate and the new Pre-U exam.

Diplomas were introduced ostensibly to end vocational education's second class status but in reality were the ill-considered consequence of botched exam reform. And, in the background, there is a jumble of vocational qualifications whose value is at best not understood by employers and students and at worst is downright questionable.

Reforming exams and qualifications into a genuinely coherent structure would not only be good for its own sake, it would also force policymakers to reconsider what the purpose of the English education system is. Spurred on by Whitehall targets, schools and colleges are becoming factories that aim to help as many students as possible pass as many exams as they can. But passing exams should be a means to an end, not an end in itself.

The primary education challenge for the next government will be to turn a school system increasingly adept at producing students with strings of A-grades into one that genuinely prepares young people for further study, and then the world of work.