King's College previously offered students a choice of A levels or the International Baccaleureate (IB). Now it is going over entirely to the IB, says The Times.
I enjoyed the comment about A levels by one of the students:
Fresh from his IB higher-level chemistry exam, Chris Sharpe, who has a conditional offer from Cambridge to study history, agrees these new exams require more effort than A-levels. Of the 30% of his fellow sixth-formers who chose the A-level programme he says: “Are they more laid back? They are flipping horizontal.”
The head notes that not everyone likes the ethos of internationalism in the IB. See previous posting about this.
Posted by James Bartholomew • Indexed in Education
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You can do it at the lower level. You can do Scottish exams and old O-Levels in some foreign countries, adminstered from here. Which a Jamaican colleague of mine tells me are significantly harder than GCSE, albeit much less impressive sounding.
It is Labour writ large. Make the courses easier, but make them sound impressive by writing codswallop.
Posted by: Paul at June 8, 2005 12:27 AM
Thanks Paul. I was aware of the "International O Levels" that still exist and the fact that these are far more rigorous than GCSE.
In fact, independent (and perhaps even state?) schools here could also choose to offer and teach for these exams, and one or two do. The problem is that the government does not allow them to be counted when the measures of GCSE equivalents are made - it just discards them. So schools that offer these will seem to get far worse results in the league tables than those that bump up their results by, for example, offering an IT GVNQ which counts as 4 GCSEs.
I'm not aware of any equivalent independent A levels.
Posted by: HJHJ at June 8, 2005 10:41 AM
It is always suggested by IB candidates that because they take more subjects, it is undoubtedly harder. However, the often missed comparison is that the IB requires people to take what might now be classed as 'difficult subjects', i.e. not much in the way of general studies, media studies, business&communication etc. Compare the workload of an A-level student taking Maths, Physics, History and French - I'd reckon it was quite similar to that of the IB candidates. The IB syllabus is not as detailed for many subjects, simply because of the reduced teaching time avaliable per subject, and the earlier exams.
6 subjects they claim- I know people who take 6 'Hard' A-levels!
Posted by: Mike at June 21, 2005 10:39 PM
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There are traditionally many reasons to prefer the A level system over the IB. Many schools and pupils are now choosing the IB only because the government has manipulated and devalued A levels.
So what do you do if you prefer an A-level system, but want the rigour restored? The IB is not best for all. Is there scope for an "International A Level" run by an independent (i.e. private sector) organisation free from government imposed dumbing down and grade inflation?
Posted by: HJHJ at June 7, 2005 08:53 AM