Micheal Gove recently announced the scrapping of GCSEs in favour of an English Baccalaureate Certificate under one exam board.

How would this sudden reduction in exam board flexibility affect two schools, say; School A and School B, in vastly different contexts?

School A has a 95% pass rate, is situated comfortably in a leafy suburb of South London.

School B has a 32% pass rate, and is situated in inner city east London where the unemployment rates are higher than anywhere else in the country.

School A is a Private institution that has a large intake of middle class students. It receives an excessive amount of resourceful material for students to achieve their best.

School B is an academy which has been profoundly impacted by government cuts, and is struggling even to provide basic essentials.

Previously, the exam boards would have catered to the school's resources and subsequently capabilities. School A would have had the considerably difficult AQA for Triple Science. School B would have been allocated 21st Century Science by OCR, an undeniably less challenging course. The Triple Science would have resulted in three qualifications, 21st Century would have resulted in one. Each number would be reflective of the work input, and if a child from School B wished to further their education in Science, they could take Additional Science, which provides a much harder challenge, entirely optional for if a child believes they can succeed in it within the resources they have.

One could argue that those in school B will be less knowledgeable by the end of Year 11, and hence less prepared for the difficulties of a competitive future, especially considering the state of which jobs are available.
But then, give AQA to a school which does not have the matching resources to ensure the children are well equipped for the course, and the student's that worked within their limited capabilities to attain an A are now told that that A is undeserved, and instead achieve a C.
In order to get into a reputable Sixth Form or College, that simply would not have been enough. A lack of access to further education will now lessen their chances of getting into a top university. That child's future is now significantly impacted.

Refusing a flexible choice of exam boards has now severely impacted that child's future.

How is it justifiable that Micheal Gove and the team of indifferent privileged politicians sit there cutting away at the resources of state schools and THEN ask those same schools to work to the same standards as a school with double the resources?
This isn't "reducing competition to make exams easier".

This is simply reducing education to, once again, a privilege instead of a right.

It will certainly be interesting, what with the drastic penalising of students, to see how the younger generations vote come 2014.

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