Schoolchildren being 'pushed into studying new diplomas'

Children are being pushed into studying controversial new diplomas with no guarantee universities will accept them, a teachers' leader warned yesterday.

Andrew Broadhurst said the introduction of the qualifications had been so "haphazard" not even the teachers involved understood them properly.

He accused ministers of drawing up education policy "on the back of a cigarette packet" and devising an over-complex system of new qualifications for secondary schools.

It was not clear that all universities supported the qualifications, being phased in as rivals to GCSEs and A-levels from September, he said.

Strings of supportive comments from institutions - trumpeted by the Department for Children - were "extremely optimistic at best" and "downright disingenuous at worst", he added.

Mr Broadhurst, chairman of Voice teaching union, spoke out as he delivered a speech at the group's annual conference in Daventry.

'The implementation appears to be haphazard at best,' he said.  'Large numbers of staff will be starting to teach the diploma, or parts of it, in September with little or no understanding of how the whole thing works.

'Students are being sold the diploma courses by staff who themselves have little understanding of what's involved.

'I suspect that quotes about universities understanding and respecting the diplomas will prove to be extremely optimistic at best and downright disingenuous at worst.'

Diplomas are meant to combine academic theory and vocational training and will be available in 17 subjects spanning job-related and traditional disciplines.

Ministers have refused to guarantee A-levels and GCSEs will survive a qualifications review due in 2013.

But the CBI dealt a blow to the qualifications last month by attacking the Government's decision to extend the diploma programme to include academic disciplines.

The industry group warned that adding languages, science and humanities to the suite of diploma subjects risked creating a "fractured two-tier education system" with private schools offering A-levels and the International Baccalaureate and state schools opting for diplomas.

The Department for Children responded by providing evidence of support for diplomas, including quotes from universities.

But not all gave unreserved backing. The Russell Group of elite institutions, including Oxford and Cambridge said members were "in the process of assessing the academic rigour and general suitability" of the diploma.

Some, including Cambridge, have given their backing to the engineering diploma while being less vocal about the rest.

In his address to 38,000-strong Voice, formerly the Professional Association of Teachers, Mr Broadhurst, a physics teacher, said some initiatives from Schools Secretary Ed Balls' department "look like they've been written on the back of a cigarette packet when the Education Secretary that week had a spare minute".

He went on to attack ministers over plans to raise the education leaving age to 18, claiming it would lead to mass truancy and classroom indiscipline.

He warned that teachers and lecturers faced groups "of near adults who have no wish to be at their place of study".

'Will they attend regularly? I think not. Will they behave themselves while they are there? I think not.'