146
Professor Higginson Proposes More, Leaner and Tougher A levels
In her overview of attempts to reform A levels, Margaret Mathieson identified a shift
in the 1980s behind the drive for reform. She felt that the initiative was becoming
driven less by educationists’ advocating breadth than by policymakers’ concern about
England’s international competitiveness. The brief of the Higginson committee was
to:
...Recommend the principles which should govern GCE A-Ievel syllabuses and
their assessment (with a view to broadening courses of study and thereby
increasing the numbers moving on to higher education).
(Mathieson 1992: 191)
The Higginson Report was published in the summer of 1988 and made a series of
recommendations which commanded widespread support:
1 Five rather than three subjects should be the norm.
2 ‘Leaner and tougher ’ syllabuses should be less padded with ‘inessential and
inconsequential information.
3 Students should continue to be drawn from high ability groups.
4 More concentration is needed on high level skills such as the ability to think
and act independently and less on memorised facts.
5 All subjects should have a compulsory common core to ensure greater
compatibility between boards.
6 There should be far fewer syllabuses. (At present they number in excess of
400.)
7 Criteria-based assessment and reporting should be introduced.
8 Schools and colleges should be accredited to control in-course assessment for
up to 20% of the final mark.
(Quoted in Mathieson 1992: 192)
Mathieson reported the “great disappointment" of a wide cross section of supporters
of the Higginson proposals - the Committee of University Vice Chancellors and
Principals (CVCP), the Standing Committee on University Entrance (SCUE), the
teaching unions and the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) - when the
Government rejected them (Mathieson 1992: 192). The stated grounds for this
rejection were the number of concurrent changes elsewhere in the system - widely
judged to be a rather lame excuse in view of the fact that they were all changes which