Some background
Old System:
(Introduced in 1951 to replace the HSC)
New System:
(Introduced in 2001 to replace the old A level system)
- Students finish compulsory schooling at the age of 16 after taking GCSEs.
- They choose 4 AS level subjects (half the marks of an A level). This is now virtually compulsory because the government want everyone to stay in school.
- The student studies for 2 terms doing coursework.
- The student takes their AS level exams.
- One subject is dropped and 3 are continued to A2 (unless they are particularly clever)
- They work for a further 2 terms doing more coursework (and possibly studying for retakes).
- The student takes their A2 exams and hopes they get into university (or goes to get a job) with their grades.
The new A level system has two major problems: Less learning time and there is no margin for error.
Previously, the student had two years to learn everything for their course followed by what is essentially a terms worth of exams. Now, we must subtract another terms worth of learning in the classroom for the AS-level exams. This is bad. The syllabuses are still trying to cram in the same amount of subject material into a course that has just lost a fifth of its learning time! Whilst I was doing my A2s, I heard several of my teachers mention that the syllabus would be reduced the next year. They were just taking out a whole section of the course so the government could make us do virtually pointless exams. We are sacrificing our education for paperwork dammit!
Was the old system that bad that it had to come to this?
My second complaint is that these new exams contribute 50% of the second years final grade. This is a great idea if your first year went well as you can relax and not have to worry too much about the A2 exams. However, what happens if you screw your first year up royally? It would have been nice to have some exams that didn’t matter, just to give you a kick in the teeth and make you realise that you have to work. This doesn’t happen though. I personally messed my first year up a lot. I got CCDD where I should have got AABB at the least. This meant I had to work incredibly hard the second year, resulting in getting BCC. I got several A’s in my second year A2 exams, but because of the system, I ended up getting shafted out of a good grade.
Sure you can do retakes, but that means you have to learn it all over again and have the same stress as if you were taking the old A-levels anyway, just with less time.
Unfortunately, we can’t go back to the old system because the government must not be seen as ‘backward thinking’, so we have to go forward into some new nightmare cooked up by the fools running the country.
I’m going to move to Austria and live on a mountain away from everyone…