The president of the UK’s most prestigious science academy is to call for A-levels to be replaced with a baccalaureate-style qualification to “break the stranglehold of academic snobbery” towards learning skills.
Sir Adrian Smith will tell a Royal Society conference on the future of education that concentrating on A-levels “forces young people to abandon a broad range of skills at the age of 16”, narrowing their perspectives and limiting their ability to change careers later in life.
The Royal Society, founded in 1660, includes the likes of Issac Newton, Charles Darwin and Stephen Hawking among its past fellows. But Smith – a former vice-chancellor of the University of London – wants fewer theoretical and more practical qualifications for the good of the country.
