Diploma plan criticised

The Government's planned new diplomas will "suffer in the shadow of A levels" unless all qualifications for 14-19 year-olds are brought within a single framework, a report warns this week. Academics working on the Nuffield Review of 14-19 education and training said it was regrettable that the diploma would have to forge its identity as a vocational qualification, and on a "rushed" timetable, ahead of the arrival of other, more academically based diplomas in science, languages and the humanities. Ken Spours, head of the department of continuing and professional education at the Institute of Education, said the new qualifications risked becoming "a poor relation" to A levels.