Tomlinson predicts the demise of GCSE exams

The demise of the GCSE exam as a national school leaving certificate was predicted last night by the man put in charge of government plans to overhaul the curriculum for students aged 14 to 19.

Mike Tomlinson said the exam had been first sat in 1988 at a time when most youngsters left school at 16. "Given mass staying on at 16, what is the need for a leaving certificate? A progress check is needed at 16 but do we need either the level of assessment associated with GCSE or the cost to the system?" he said.

Mr Tomlinson, the former chief schools inspector who led the government inquiry into last year's A-level fiasco, acknowledged that "the burden of assessment" in the past three years of schooling for those who stayed on until A-level was now "too great".

He said the disruption to schools through the GCSE exam would be minimised if it was internally marked by teachers when pupils were staying in full-time education. It could operate as a "driving test", taken at special centres outside of schools, for the small minority who wanted to quit at 16 and needed a qualification.

Mr Tomlinson also set out a vision of a new-style English baccalaureate. The system would replace existing A and AS-level exams with foundation, intermediate and advanced awards. Successful elements of the existing examinations could be incorporated into the new qualification, he said.

He also said the baccalaureate could include "some non-measurable elements of the curriculum" – including participation in voluntary activities such as the Duke of Edinburgh's award or art, drama and sports activities – as evidence of students' personal development.

This would allow ministers to drop plans for a national diploma for all youngsters, already sent back to the drawing board after they were criticised by headteachers.

In an annual lecture held by the Oxford and Cambridge and Royal Society of Art, Mr Tomlinson also warned that half the nation's 16-year-olds were "failing to benefit from the education provided". The rate of failure "increases at each stage of education", he said.

Mr Tomlinson cited figures showing that 11 per cent of students fell short of the required standards in national curriculum tests for pupils aged seven while 50 per cent failed to obtain five top-grade A* to C grade passes at GCSE – the Government's benchmark for 16-year-olds.

He demanded a radical overhaul of the school timetable to combat the failure rate.

"Who on earth decided that the best way to learn a modern foreign language, say, is to have 35 minutes a day for two years – and then turn your mind for another 35 minutes to another subject which has nothing in common with what you have been learning? You can never get into a subject in depth. Consequently, the kids don't enjoy it and teachers cannot really get something done."

He praised schools that had decided to devote whole days to one area of the curriculum.

Mr Tomlinson, whose working group will present its final report next year, said the current system had led to Britain being "second worst only to the USA in world adult illiteracy tables – despite having more university graduates (35.6 per cent) than any other industrialised country". He added: "What this represents is a significant number of our children failing to benefit from the education provided. In essence, they are failing to learn."