Sunderland Echo reporter and former teacher Neil Fatkin reacts to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's education reform announcements at the 2023 Conservative Party Conference
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00:00 Hi, my name's Neil Fatkin, a reporter with the Sunderland Echo.
00:03 I previously worked for 17 years teaching geography for A-level and also GCSE.
00:09 Just giving some reaction to Rishi Sunak's announcement yesterday about his plans to introduce this Advanced British Standard qualification to replace A-levels and T-levels.
00:18 I mean, to be honest, I suppose, yeah, the devil will be in the detail and the proof in the pudding.
00:23 And obviously he's mentioned it's going to be some 10 years before it's introduced.
00:27 It's all a question of balance, really, whilst in principle, ensuring that young people leave school with a breadth of education,
00:35 doing five subjects rather than the traditional three at A-level, could be seen as a positive,
00:40 particularly in ensuring that they are literate and also have good maths skills,
00:45 because the suggestion is that they will have to study maths and English to A-team.
00:50 Obviously, that could be viewed as a positive, but there are also a number of negatives with that.
00:56 Obviously, whilst increasing the breadth of study, one of the things which A-levels are designed for is to specialise in certain subjects,
01:03 which prepare students for their next stage in education, which is often going on to do a degree or indeed a career.
01:10 And it's obviously by stipulating that you must study maths and English,
01:14 it's going to reduce the time you can focus on particular subject areas,
01:18 which may be more in keeping with what you want to do as a degree and a career in the future.
01:22 And there's also the question of maths, I'm thinking here,
01:26 which is what level of maths do you need in certain roles and certain professions?
01:31 Obviously, yeah, I was teaching geography when I worked as a journalist.
01:35 I do use some degree of maths in my everyday life and what have you,
01:40 but I certainly wouldn't profess to need to use A-level standard maths in my everyday job and everyday life.
01:47 So, you know, there's the question of whether it is indeed necessary to study maths in particular.
01:53 And also, I suppose English to some degree to an A-level standard.
01:58 I'd probably argue being a journalist more so with the English side of things,
02:01 because being different and being able to communicate has so many crossovers in all kinds of education and also professions.
02:10 There's also, yeah, the time frame, there's this idea of 10 years.
02:15 If Rishi Sunak is wanting to bring this in, why wait for 10 years?
02:22 I mean, obviously, there would have to be a transition period, but the way things are going in the polls at the moment,
02:27 there's a good chance that in 10 years' time, or certainly the next election,
02:30 will the Conservatives be empowered to bring this through?
02:33 Who knows who will be in government in 10 years' time?
02:36 Will it be Labour? Will it be Conservatives? Will it be a coalition party?
02:41 And obviously, if Labour come in, they may well scrap Rishi Sunak's saying anyway.
02:46 I also am aware that there's a shortage, particularly with maths teachers at the moment.
02:50 So for this to be brought in, there's going to have to be something done in terms of ensuring you have sufficient maths teachers
02:56 to cover the number of additional lessons you're going to be on if students are going to be studying compulsory maths into sixth form.