Civitas: The EBacc may discriminate against poorer students

By Matthew Barrett
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Civitas has issued a note in light of yesterday's GCSE results, which suggests that because the new EBacc benchmark is to achieve A*-C grades in the five "core" academic subjects, some of the least advantaged students may not get the chance to study EBacc subjects at all.

This is based on the previous experience of schools trying to achieve A*-C grades, which showed schools discouraged students deemed unlikely to achieve a C from taking non-compulsory subjects.

Civitas' Director of Education, Anastasia de Waal said:

"The EBacc will not only fail to address this scenario, it could potentially exacerbate it by shifting the purpose of course entries entirely to securing the EBacc A*-Cs. A student judged to be unlikely to get a C risks both failing to add to the league tables and distracting teaching time away from the EBacc target."

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