Well done (no buts)

Today sees the 26th consecutive year of rises in A-level passes. More students than ever will be looking forward to starting university with a clutch of A grade passes to their name, and the satisfying knowledge that their hard work paid off. In fact, one in ten students opened their envelopes with trembling fingers this morning to find they have achieved a clean sweep of straight As. A fantastic cause for celebration.

These students however will have prepared themselves for the unavoidable - if silent - ‘but’ that hangs off the congratulatory ‘well done’.

“Well done, but...A levels are getting easier. An A grade now is the equivalent of a C grade O-level. Straight As are no longer the preserve of the brightest. As in many subjects – psychology, media studies, business, don’t count.”

As if to prove their point, The Times sent four of its writers to take A-levels in their fields. They all got As.

The media seems to take something of a delight in subtly belittling the achievements of this undeniably hard-working batch of students, whose best just can’t be good enough.
You can be incredibly bright, work your butt off at school or college, come away with as many As as possible, and your intellectual and educational credentials still don’t stand up to scrutiny. Surely the students are the victims of the system that leaves them in this quandary?

Well, according to today’s papers, no. It’s the university admissions tutors. Yes of course it’s more difficult to pick out the best and brightest. But that’s nothing compared to the difficultly involved in proving you are one of this group.

Today’s results though show that students are putting more thought into this. Contrary to popular belief, they’re not all off getting As in communication studies and home economics. Instead, this year has seen a rise in the number of pupils taking the traditional subjects of maths and English (still the two most popular A-level subjects), as well as all three sciences. In fact, the number of students sitting maths A-level has now reached a record of 65,239. Even languages – French and Spanish, though not German (schade...) have shown increases.

Ever since Cambridge published its blacklist of ‘soft’ subjects, students have been aware that good grades in the ‘wrong’ subjects won’t cut it. (Learning for learning’s sake? Not at A-level, it’s not.)

So far, so good, you might think. This surely proves students aren’t after the easy option, and deserve their high grades. But The Telegraph raises a worrying point. Some people get much more guidance with their A-level choices than others. Specifically, those in private or independent schools are much more likely to be pushed towards the subjects that will get the admission tutors’ attention.

So in many cases, the lack of faith in A grades could be adding towards the inequality of private and state school pupils in top unis.

As the government has recognised with its changes to the way sixth formers will be examined, an A-level system that a large bunch of people no longer believe in is worse than useless. It’s demoralising to the students – whatever grade they achieve; it’s a problem for the university admissions tutors; and it potentially damages the efforts to widen access into the top tiers of higher education.

Fortunately, there are still millions of people who actually understand the achievements of this year’s crop of students – the system might not be top class, but the individuals working within it have proved they are.