Michael Gove to raise the bar for GCSE students
Secondary schools in England are to be set a new target of securing five good GCSE passes for at least half of their pupils.
Education Secretary Michael Gove will set the target in a speech tomorrow, in which he will warn that Britain risks falling behind Asian economies unless it accelerates the pace of educational improvement.
The new target of 50% of pupils attaining five A -C grade GCSEs, including English and maths, would require the worst-performing secondaries to raise their results to the level currently achieved by the average school.
Those which fail could face takeover by a successful neighbouring academy school.
In the most recent round of exams, some 870 out of the 3,000 secondaries in England fell short of the benchmark.
Mr Gove has already raised the target for five good GCSEs from 30% to 35% of pupils.
He is expected to propose raising the threshold to 40% in the 2012-13 academic year and 50% by 2015.
According to The Guardian, he will point out that in Singapore, some 80% of pupils already achieve at least grade C in English and maths at 16, compared to only half in the UK.
The paper also reported that he will announce plans to turn at least 88 struggling schools - 73 secondaries and 13 primaries - into academies over the next two years.
