Exams: No change yet

Education reforms delayed

The Government is to delay wide-ranging reforms of post-16 courses, including A-levels and vocational qualifications. The announcement was made by the Education Minister Baroness Blackstone.

Ministers want to think again about how studies in sixth-forms and colleges could be broadened, without sacrificing academic "rigour". The delay also reflects concern that the reform timetable proposed last year by Government adviser Sir Ron Dearing is too tight. Baroness Blackstone said that New courses planned for September 1998 will be put off for at least a year.

Announcing the delay, Baroness Blackstone said the framework of post-16 qualifications needed to:

• Increase participation
• Promote flexibility and encourage lifelong learning
• Secure high standards
• Offer clear routes into higher education, employment and further training.

"In developing such a framework, we want to build on the proposals in Sir Ron Dearing's recent review," she said.

Broader range of studies

But he stopped short of compelling such a broad range of study, leaving students able to follow the traditional, narrower, A-level route, if they preferred.

The Government is understood to be keen to look again at making a broader range of studies compulsory.

Courses that were due to start next September included tougher A-levels with re-written "subject cores" and new AS-levels equivalent to the first year of traditional A-level courses.