Clarke pledges to lighten workload

Education Secretary Charles Clarke today pledged that teenagers will in future face fewer exams in the senior years of secondary school.

Only last week, he floated the idea of introducing even more secondary school tests, extending national curriculum tests at age 14 to all subjects.

But today he made clear that this would not happen before steps were taken to ease the exam burden at age 16 and in the sixth form.

His comments show that the Government is prepared to tear up the sixthform reforms which came fully into force only last year, acknowledging that they have made British teenagers the most heavily examined in the world.

They raise fresh questions about both the GCSE and AS-level exams, which critics claim are putting intolerable pressure on both schools and pupils.

Former chief schools inspector Mike Tomlinson is currently chairing a governmentappointed working group reviewing the future of all qualifications from ages 14 to 19.

He will produce an interim report next month. Today Mr Clarke said: "I would be surprised if one of the conclusionshe comes to is not somehow to reduce the pressure on teenagers."

Last year, in his report on the A-level marking debacle, Mr Tomlinson suggested that 16-year-olds should take far fewer GCSEs. He also suggested that A-level students should no longer have to take an AS-level as an automatic first half of the qualification.

Mr Clarke today signalled that the Government is sympathetic to these ideas as it prepares to reshape children's secondary school years into two new phases, from ages 11-14 and 14-19.

He said: "To be blunt, he [Mr Tomlinson] would not have been appointed to the job had we been thinking that the conclusions to what he said last time were completely wrong."

Mr Tomlinson has made clear his report will recommend moving to a European-style baccalaureate, possibly with obligatory subject combinations for 16-year-olds.

He has also said that this would mean the end of the GCSE and A-level as freestanding qualifications.