English Bac defended by schools minister

The schools minister has defended the English Baccalaureate, suggesting that the coalition government intends to introduce more such accountability measures in the future.

Nick Gibb defended the new benchmark, despite criticisms from various teaching unions that it doesn't properly assess student success, according to the BBC.

The English Bac is a measure of how many students receive five A* to C GCSE grades in the core subjects of English, maths, a language, two sciences and either geography or history.

Schools' performances in the new metric were included in league tables for the first time this year, but many feel that it places too much focus on academic subjects at the expense of others.

However, Mr Gibb is reported to have said: "We made it clear that we want more information out there - and this is more information out there.

"This is the first of many such measures we want to put in the public domain."

The English Baccalaureate was introduced in 2010 and should not be confused with the International Baccalaureate, as it is a performance measure rather than a qualification.

Posted by Theo Foulds

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