Forty Years On: the issue of breadth in the post‐16 curriculum

Abstract

ABSTRACT Sir Ron Dealing's Review of Qualifications for 16‐19 Years Olds is the most recent in a series of reports on the post‐16 curriculum that has appeared during the last four decades. While rightly sanguine about his own distinctive contribution to the post‐war debate on 16‐19 educational provision, Dearing arguably falls victim to the same kind of conservative impulse as a number of his predecessors in failing to confront the fact that in their current form, A levels provide an insurmountable barrier to the quest for breadth in the post‐compulsory curriculum as a whole. As the following scrutiny of the post‐16 curricular debate of the late 1950s suggests, despite recognising the need to re‐structure the existing framework of 16‐19 examinations, Dearing appears as much in thrall to the notion of the A‐level system as a benchmark of academic excellence as some of his earlier counterparts. Consequently, the problem of breadth in the 16‐19 curriculum still remains largely unresolved.