4 Saturday May 28 2022 | the times
News
A-levels should be scrapped to stop
pupils specialising too early, a multi-
millionaire philanthropist has said.
Twenty-five years after setting up the
Sutton Trust to put money into educa-
tion and address disadvantages, Sir
Peter Lampl said teenagers should
study a range of subjects until their first
year of university. He described push-
ing students into three-year degrees,
rather than four or more, as “penny
pinching”.
Sir John Major and eight former edu-
cation ministers have told The Times
Education Commission, a year-long
inquiry that concludes next month,
that GCSEs should be abolished or
reformed. However, Lampl said GCSEs
should remain even though the educa-
Families do not believe university is the
best option for school leavers — except
for their own children.
Polling suggests a degree is consid-
ered the fourth most useful route for
teenagers at the end of school, after
traditional apprenticeships, degree ap-
prenticeships and work that leads to a
professional qualification.
However, when respondents were
asked what they wanted for their own
children, the most popular response
Families back apprenticeships (for other people’s children)
was for them to go to university. The
survey by Public First, for the Sutton
Trust charity, was taken by 1,600 re-
spondents in England; 1,000 of these
were nationally representative and a
further 600 lived in education invest-
ment areas (EIAs), which will play a
part in the government’s levelling-up
plans.
When asked which options would
provide the best opportunities for
young people, respondents were more
supportive of the apprenticeship and
training-based routes, with universitythe fourth most popular choice. Adults
in EIAs were more likely to say that
young people should go into appren-
ticeship and training-based routes than
adults in England as a whole. When
asked what respondents would like
their own children to do after they fin-
ished secondary school, they were most
likely to say that they wanted them to
get a degree. This was the answer for 28
per cent of adults in England and 30 per
cent in EIAs.
However, respondents in EIAs were
more likely to say they wanted theirchildren to start a degree apprentice-
ship (25 per cent) than respondents in
England as a whole (17 per cent).
Degree apprenticeships are offered
by companies including Visa, PwC and
Jaguar Land Rover. Trainees do not
have to pay tuition fees and work and
earn a salary while they learn.
Adults in EIAs were more likely to
say that their area needed levelling up
— 72 per cent compared with 56 per
cent. Some 64 per cent of them said that
inequality in the UK was growing, com-
pared with 56 per cent across England.Nicola Woolcock
Valentine’s mistake
Valentine’s roses are “horrible
things” and should be declined,
Michael Marriott, who has
worked on the rose gardens at
Windsor Castle, told the Hay
Festival. He said red roses were
“the closest things to plastic
flowers”, adding: “If you do get a
Valentine’s rose, refuse it.” About
570 tonnes of roses are bought
each February.Press freedom fight
A new law regulating online
content fails to protect press
freedom, a media representative
has warned. Owen Meredith,
chief executive of the News
Media Association, told the
Commons Online Safety Bill
committee that measures to
ensure journalistic content was
not removed arbitrarily were
unsatisfactory.£30k bullying payout
A food shop worker has won
almost £30,000 in compensation
after she was sacked for making
complaints of bullying. Chris
Brown subjected Stephanie
Nelson to angry, expletive-riddled
rants at a sandwich bar in
Rotherham, South Yorkshire. The
chef’s cursing increased her risk
of having stress-related epileptic
seizures, the hearing was told.Life-support dispute
A High Court judge is to visit the
boy at the centre of a life-support
treatment dispute. Doctors
treating Archie Battersbee, 12,
think it is “highly likely” he is
dead and say treatment should
end. His mother believes he may
have suffered brain damage after
an online challenge. Justice
Arbuthnot ruled he should have
scans on his brain and spine.Officer on 44 charges
A Metropolitan Police officer who
served with the Parliamentary
and Diplomatic Protection
Command faces trial accused of
44 offences including 21 rapes
against 12 women over 17 years.
PC David Carrick, an armed
officer, appeared at Snaresbrook
crown court yesterday via video
link from Belmarsh prison. He
pleaded not guilty to 15 charges,
having denied 29 charges earlier,
and now faces a trial on February
6 at Southwark crown court. He
was remanded in custody.AAAAAABC
DEEH I I KL
L L L NNNR R
S T T U WWW YSolve all five clues using each
letter underneath once only
1 Chardonnay or riesling, eg (5)2 River margins (5)3 Northern Territory capital (6)4 Aardman Animations character (7)5 Of course (9)Quintagram®No 1327
Solutions see page 87
Cryptic clues see Review page 53Feel the burn A pilot tests his Typhoon’s abilities above RAF Coningsby, Lincolnshire, in rehearsals for the Platinum Jubilee flypast over Buckingham Palace. The
aircraft is making a tight turn, creating an area of low pressure around the wings and producing water vapour, which appears orange in the light of the setting sun
CAROLINE HAYCOCK/BAV MEDIANicola Woolcock Education Editor
Scrap A-levels and specialise
later, says education benefactor
tion leaving age is now 18. Of the A-lev-
el system he said: “I think the whole
thing should be reformed. It’s crazy,
choosing to specialise at 15 or 16. Doing
three to four subjects at that age is cra-
zy, and then you do one subject at uni-
versity or maybe two.”
Lampl, 75, added: “I would introduce
a baccalaureate. Are you better off
having done seven different subjects [in
sixth form] or three? It’s a no-brainer.”
“You could keep GCSEs but intro-
duce a baccalaureate at 16 that covers
seven or eight subjects. We did some in-
teresting research on this in the UK,
United States, Germany and Sweden.
We looked at what people knew when
they left school.
“And it’s what you expect: our pupils
know a lot about a narrow band of sub-
jects. And the others knew a little about
a lot of things, which I like.”
Lampl went to a grammar school
before studying at Oxford and the
London Business School. “One of thethings I like about the US system is it’s
a four-year deal, and in the first year
you do a lot of different things,” he said
of universities. “You effectively decide
your major when you’re 19.” He said of
the British three-year degree: “We’re
trying to save money so we get kids
through it in three.”
Lampl said one of the Sutton Trust’s
biggest achievements had been putting
social mobility on the map.
He said: “Now everyone talks about
it, whereas before we got into it people
didn’t even understand the phrase or
know what it was.”
However, Lampl said he preferred
the phrase income mobility. “Social
mobility sounds better but it’s not what
you’re aiming for, moving into an upper
class. That connotation is something
different from what really is an income
mobility measure,” he said.
Lampl is also chairman of the Educa-
tion Endowment Foundation, set up in
2011 and funded by an endowment of£125 million from the government, to
improve the performance of the poor-
est children in the lowest-performing
schools. He has long lobbied ministers
to pay for bright children from deprived
homes to attend independent schools.
However, he said he was “not in fa-
vour” of private education, adding: “I
would really like a comprehensive
system but we don’t have one. We’ve got
7 per cent going to private schools, 5 per
cent going to grammar schools. And
guess where the best comprehensive
schools are? Where the house prices
are high. So about 20 per cent of schools
go to rich people.”
Of private schools, Lampl said:
“Despite all the horseshit about the
bursaries it’s just not there. So we don’t
have a comprehensive system. The
number of opt-outs here is ridiculous. If
I could wave a magic wand it would be
to get rid of all that... My ideal would be
to have a truly comprehensive system.
Ours is full of holes.”Education Commission