A letter to the Daily Telegraph which was published on 7th March 1989.

The Government rejected the Higginson report’s recommendation to substitute five so-called leaner A-levels for the current three full A-levels in the sixth form because it saw rightly that whatever protective words might be used (“rigorous”, “academically demanding”) it would be a precipitous fall in standards.

It would simply pass the work of the schools to the universities and require, in the science subjects and engineering, a general extension to four-year courses: that is, an immediate rise in the cost of university education by a third.

Instead of focusing on the supposed lack of breadth in sixth-form teaching, Mr Marriott (letter, Mar. 1st) and his colleagues in the Head Masters’ Conference should leave A-levels alone and recognise that the problem starts much earlier in state schools with their exaggerated emphasis on pointless project work and creativity for pupils barely able to read or write.

Many sixth formers do not so much lack breadth as any knowledge of their own language, their history and the geography of the world, as so tellingly pointed out by Christopher Andrew (article, Feb 28th).

Children of a wide range of abilities can learn about these three essential basics of a broad education, but they need to be taught and tested objectively in public examinations.  Until the shallow ideology which rejects didactic instruction and self-discipline is swept out of our educational system, none of the ills identifield by the Inspectorate will ever be healed.