Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

The purpose of Ofqual is to look at qualifications and the criteria for qualifications. Ofqual will be able to undertake research and will have a regular programme of research looking at comparisons over time. It will be empowered to do the assessments we are talking about. However, we are not asking Ofqual to assess the performance of the whole education system. We are asking it to assess the quality of the qualifications and the standards. If you have a GCSE today and you gain a GCSE in five years’ time or 10 years’ time, do they have the same value? This is the problem. When all our young people do so well at school and get their As at A-level and so on—there is huge concern that they have not done as well, as standards of A-levels are perceived to have fallen—we will have a mechanism, an independent body, that will be able to advise us on whether this is the case.