A return to the two-tier exam system?

Michael Gove faces MPs at education questions this afternoon, and as you might expect, GCSEs appear a couple of times on the order paper. Labour’s Emma Reynolds will ask the Education Secretary ‘what plans he has for the future of GCSEs, and if he will make a statement’. As I blogged on Friday, Gove does have plans to make a statement about the future of the secondary school exams, and the Liberal Democrats believe they’ve managed to squash any hopes he had of returning to the two-tier system of O levels and CSEs.

But Gove didn’t quite stick to this when he did his tour of the television and radio studios this morning. It was in his interview with John Humphrys on the Today programme where the Education Secretary suggested he still wants an exam which will not be taken by every 16-year-old. He said:

‘One of the things that’s important to stress is that the O level is an examination which in the past used to be sat by a minority which is why when people have discussed this potential return, they’ve automatically assumed it would be a minority exam.