The Advanced British Standard – A huge missed opportunityOn 30 August FE News reported on a survey, carried out in the US by Business Name Generator , the key finding of which was that “84% of employees and managers believe new employees must possess soft skills and demonstrate this in the hiring process” – soft skills such as communication, problem-solving, critical thinking, self-motivation, flexibility, creativity and leadership.Alas, it appears that this survey – and the many other reports published over the last few years stressing the importance of soft skills – have not been noticed by the government.As we all know, at the Tory Party Conference in Manchester on 4 October, Prime Minister Sunak announced a flagship reform programme for education, with the speech’s soundbites supported by a 39-page report entitled “ A world-class education system – The Advanced British Standard ”.To quote the report:“This is a long term reform: it will take a decade to deliver in full”.A decade.Well, it’s not every day that the government announces a “long term reform” of education, and since even the government’s estimate is that the reform will take a decade to implement (mmm… government estimate…), the reform must be profound indeed.WHAT DOES THE REFORM LOOK LIKE? WHAT ARE THE INTENDED OUTCOMES?Page 36 of the government’s report provides the answers:The outcome is that 16-18 year-olds will no longer study typically three A Levels or one T Level, but three “majors” and either two or three “minors”, with a condition that English and Maths must be included in the mix.You might expect that the 39-page report would contain much more detail than the Prime Minister’s announcement. So prepare for a disappointment. One page is the contents, three are Gillian Keegan’s foreword, and a further five, the executive summary. That takes us to page 10, the first of a further 9 pages that celebrate the Tory government’s educational achievements since Michael Gove took over as Secretary of State in 2010.So it’s not until page 20 that we learn about the reforms themselves, and although the remaining 19 pages are about the proposals, there is much repetition and very little detail beyond the key headlines (page 21):- “We will deliver genuine parity of esteem between technical and academic routes”, as achieved by the replacement of the two qualification streams, A Levels and T Levels, by the single Advanced British Standard.- “We will increase in quality teaching time”, explained as “We need to do more to increase students’ access to and time with high-quality teachers” – which is, I’m sure, a ‘good thing’ to do, but is phrased as if it were somehow the fault of the students, who, by inference, need to be encouraged and cajoled to attend classes. We have to wait until page 32 to read “ This will be achieved by more funded teaching hours ”. Ah. So the issue is nothing to do with students. It’s about the failure of the government to have provided sufficient funds in the past.- “We will embed a core of essential knowledge”, this being code for “all 16-18 students must do Maths and English”.- “We will ensure everyone studies a greater breadth of subjects”, as depicted in the diagram.In addition, there are commitments to:- “invest in teacher recruitment and retention by giving those who teach key shortage subjects a payment of up to £6,000, tax-free per year, if they are in the first five years of their career”- “invest an additional c.£150 million each year to support those who do not pass maths and English GCSE at 16 to gain these qualifications”- “invest an additional £40 million in the Education Endowment Foundation”- “turbo-charge the best, evidence-based techniques for maths teaching [by investing] £60 million of additional funding for maths education over the next two years”.That’s my summary of what’s in the report.WHAT ABOUT THE CURRICULUM?But to me, much more important is what’s not in the report.Take, for example, the word ‘curriculum’....