We must try to complete Gove’s A-level revolution

The current A-level exams, the results of which are being received today by students, were devised by Michael Gove when he was education secretary in David Cameron’s government in March 2012. He said the existing A-levels were no longer of the required standard and requested that changes be urgently made.

Gove was one of the great reforming education secretaries since the Second World War. He was adamant that all young people, regardless of social background, should be able to benefit from academic study in school and aspire to enter the best universities and the best jobs.

It was a shame that he left office in the summer of 2014 before his education revolution could be completed.

Not that it was perfect. We are seeing the results of the good and bad aspects of his reforms today. The best is that young people have been able to sit and excel at demanding academic A-levels regardless of their background. Good schools are no longer so much the preserve of the middle classes. Exams have become more rigorous and more academic. Universities have helped shape the new A-levels and they are a better preparation for them.

The problems include the low number of students sitting some academic A-levels, including French, German and music. French entrants are down eight per cent this year to below 8,000, while German entrants are down 16 per cent, with fewer than 3,000 students.

That is not all that’s wrong. Schools have become exam factories all too often, as acknowledged by Amanda Spielman, the head of the schools inspector Ofsted, last week. Because exam success is so important for students, as well as for schools, exams have been allowed to become too important. A wider quality of education has been sacrificed.

Another unfortunate development is that the focus on exams has had a negative impact on the mental health and wellbeing of young people.

We therefore need to finish the revolution initiated by Gove. In Damian Hinds, we have an Education Secretary who shows every sign of understanding what must be done. Exams are certainly important but they are not all-important, and by allowing them to become so we have lost our way.

Hinds should put children and their rounded development back at the heart of education. Unlocking their talent for the arts, sport, entrepreneurship and creativity is the right of every child in the school system. When we do this, we don’t see the academic performance of young people decline, but improve, as study after study has shown.

I am confident we can complete the revolution. It will not help students who get their results today but it will help those in the future, and the quicker we bring in these reforms, the better.

• Sir Anthony Seldon is the vice-chancellor of the University of Buckingham