AS-Level blues... (The new AS-level system - Pros & Contra)

Member Name: David Lu

Product:	The new AS-level system - Pros & Contra
Date:	21/06/01 (125 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: More subjects/'qualificati ons', (I've run out of room in the Disadvantages bit!) Lack of student motivation, All round stress

Disadvantages: Half an A-Level in two-thirds of the time!, Lack of text books, Are universites taking it seriously?

Being 17 years of age and being the first academic school year to try out the new AS-Level system, I can honestly say that the system is a shocker. Just a bit of background information though, the system was introduced so that it would broaden the education of pupils in the 6th form by allowing them to take 4 AS-Levels in the first year, and then in the following year, for the pupil to drop one of the 4 AS-Level subjects and carrying on the remaining 3 subjects to an A2-Level. This compares with the old system where pupils were to take on 3 subjects from the beginning of their 6th form and carry them through until the end of the 2-year course, and then hopefully qualify with 3 full A-Levels. Many have agreed that the idea is absolutely right, that pupils' education must be broadened at this stage so that there is a more open mind whilst choosing for the all-important University courses. In theory, this is great. However, in practice, a completely different story is told.

An AS-Level is comprised of 3 seperate modules of which the percentage accounts for 50% (in most cases), of the final A2-Level percentage if the pupil were to carry on that subject. These modules can be taken at 3 certain times during the year: January, March or June. If you're unlucky enough to have under-achieved in a taking of a module, you are only allowed one re-sit of the module whereas before you were entitled to as many re-sits as you felt desirable. The AS-Level contents for each subject is supposedly meant to be roughly half the syllabus of an original A-Level (under the old system), and assessed at a lower level. Although this may be the case, as the modules can only be taken as late as June, teachers are struggling to fit the whole 3 modules into the alloted time due to the situation virtually being half an A-Level being taught in two-thirds of the time. This is because the exams are taken shortly into the 3 term whereas previously, exams were taken at the end
of the two years so teachers were not really pushed for time. You may be thinking that maybe it would be easier to take modules in January to ease the pressure for the July set of exams, where to bulk of the exams are bound to be taken. However, in January, many schools entered their top maths students for the Pure 1 Mathematics module to no doubt ease the pressure of exams in June for them, and yet the national average in January for that module was a grade 'U'. Shocked? So were we.

Everyone knows that a student's favourite companion to studying is a text book. Due to the new AS-Level syllabus for each subject, new text books were needed by all who were taking modules. Taking the Pure 1 Mathematics module as an example again, the text book for the exam board I was taking (AQA), was released in March, 4 months late of it's scheduled November publishing date. Now, as I took the module in June, this doesn't seem to be a problem. It wasn't, but it was for the other 5 Mathematics modules that I took in June! The Pure Mathematics 2 text book was due to be released in January, well in advance of the June exam and I'm disappointed to say that we didn't manage to receive the text book in time for our exam. I hear the latest release date now for that text book is in August! Our saviour turned out to be the syllabus itself and we had to scoot around various text books to find the relevant information for each topic. This was no easy task.

Many pupils in a situation similar to mine no doubt feel exactly the same when I say, this new system absolutely stinks. Some pupils have said that they feel used by the government, gineau pigs if you may, to test out this new system. Some universities have objected to this system so much that they are going to disregard AS-Level grades and mainly base their offers on GCSE grades and teacher assesments. This may be the only just way of judging pupils of my age due to the injust
AS-Level farce.

This is all assuming that all the exam papers get marked! With the massive increase in manuscripts to mark (I myself took a total of 14 modules, well 13 and my final one is tomorrow...ARGH!), exam boards are struggling to find enough people to mark the papers. It may be the case that we have our papers marked by people who have little or no experience in the given subject due to the desperate nature of the situation.

On top of this, there seems to be an all-round lack of motivation from the pupils and teachers alike. With more learning/teaching to be done in a shorter time scale, things are looking glum. The latest news is that the Education Minister is ordering a full investigation into the whole AS-Level system, not to eradicate the system as such, but to improve it. Shame the coffin's had its final nails.

Just the results to come now...

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Ok update now that I have just received my results:

C in Economics
B in Electronics
A in Physics
A in Music
A in Further Maths
A in Maths

Well, I'm telling you that I was totally surprised with my results...I did far better than expected which makes me suspect that the marks were raised so that the original percentage of students received an A grade. However, do you hear me complaining?!

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