08 December 2006
Education leaders have greeted with caution Prime Minister Tony Blair's announcement that access to the International Baccalaureate is to be widened.
In a speech to the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust last week, Blair said the IB was becoming more popular because some young people wanted to continue with a broad qualification after the age of 16.
'We believe that there should be at least one sixth-form college or school in every local authority offering students the choice of the IB,' he said on November 30.
'So we will support up to 100 extra schools and colleges in training staff to offer the qualification by 2010.'
But Neil Hopkins, principal of the successful Peter Symonds College in Winchester, told Public Finance that the IB was like Esperanto – 'a nice idea but completely irrelevant', and was being advocated because the government was responding to pressure to denigrate the A-level.
Peter Symonds would offer the IB if there was demand, Hopkins said, but he added that there was anecdotal evidence to suggest that studying for IB often made it harder to gain entry to university, as admissions tutors were often unfamiliar with the system.
John Dunford, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, warned of the cost implications of implementing the qualification.
He said: 'Offering the IB as well as A-levels and the new specialised diplomas, is extremely costly, even when schools and colleges are working in partnership. Unless the government recognises the financial costs of these proposals and funds them appropriately, they will never get off the ground.'
Dunford added that, if the government saw the need for a baccalaureate qualification, it should have implemented the Tomlinson report in full. That had advocated that GCSEs, A-levels and vocational qualifications evolve into a diploma system.
Blair also used his speech to announce an expansion of the academy-building programme, doubling numbers from 200 to 400.
PFdec2006
