Crackdown on school league table tricks
The government is to crack down on school league table tricks by cutting the value of vocational qualifications in performance measures.
Some of these so-called equivalent qualifications count for as much as four or even six GCSEs.
This creates "perverse incentives" for schools to offer them so as to boost their league table position.
From 2014, only "high value" qualifications will count, and on a one-for-one basis with academic ones.
The number of equivalent qualifications taken in schools has exploded in recent years from 15,000 in 2004 to 575,000 in 2010.
Some have such a high equivalency with GCSEs that pupils could conceivably take one of these qualifications, plus English and maths GCSE, to be counted for the school benchmark of five good GCSEs including English and maths.
But now the Department for Education has set out strict new criteria so that what it says are only valued vocational qualifications are recognised in the tables.
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... (BBC News - 28 October)