Why not replace Diplomas with something like the French Bacc?
On 11 September Kelly speaks out again about Tory plans to abolish the present governments diplomas. It is a truth universally acknowledged that the UK can turn out limitless numbers of students skilled in the nuances of a dead Regency novelist but not a would-be electrician with the respect or training she deserves. No one since Prince Albert has taken vocational education seriously. Few of the initiatives since his day have got off the ground. Fewer still were as ill-starred as Diplomas. .. The result [of government pusillanimity] was a half-Tomlinson an embarrassed compromise which recognised that although the vocational question was pressing, it wasnt as urgent as the need not to disturb the voting middle classes. Kelly agrees with the Tories that the diploma should go, but argues strongly that something valuable must replace it. He says: A comprehensive education needs a comprehensive qualification. The English should learn from the French, who have successfully re-tooled the Bacc
