A NEW qualification modelled on the old O level, with an emphasis on final examinations, is being adopted by independent chools eager to give their pupils the edge in university applications.

The International GCSE, launched by the Edexcel board, tests pupils in a series of examinations taken at the end of a two-year course, rather than through a mixture of coursework and final papers.

It has been welcomed by Mike Tomlinson, the former Chief Inspector of Schools, who is conducting a review of qualifications on behalf of the Government. He said that coursework in GCSEs needed to be “substantially pruned”.

Edexel says that it has had a flood of inquiries from British head teachers about the examination, believing that the traditional “finals” format will appeal to university admissions tutors. Only independent schools will offer it: state heads are obliged to offer GCSEs.

Teachers and admissions tutors have grown increasingly concerned about how many pupils could be using the high proportion of coursework in modern papers — up to two thirds of the marks in some GCSEs — to get higher grades with the help of teachers, parents or the internet. It has also been blamed for overburdening pupils and school staff, and for hastening the decline in the academic performance of boys relative to girls.

Mr Tomlinson said that the enthusiasm for final-paper assessment was a clear sign that coursework should be cut. He has been told by schools and examination boards that coursework has become a huge problem.

“Pupils are doing anything between five and nine pieces of coursework for each exam,” he said. “It’s in everyone’s interest that we reduce it to one, maybe at most two pieces. Otherwise it is a case of doing coursework for coursework’s sake. We cannot be sure it is the pupil’s own work.”

The IGCSE is being offered in English literature, English language, maths, physics, chemistry, biology, ICT, business studies, history and geography, and has two tiers: foundation (grade C-G) and higher (grade A*-D). The first papers will be taken next summer in maths: the rest will start in 2005. Edexcel expects that 20,000 students will sit the exams in 2004-05, split between British and foreign examination centres.

Ten British universities have so far approved it as a qualification, including Oxford, Durham and Exeter. IGCSEs are already offered by the University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate, but the initiative from Edexcel is the first attempt by a board to court the domestic market overtly by suggesting it as a replacement for conventional GCSEs.

“We have had tremendous interest from schools,” a senior source at Edexcel said. There is a real appetite for old-fashioned standards.”

Edexcel was acquired by NCS Pearson, part of the international media group, in a £20million deal in May. Pearson plans to revolutionise the examination system with online marking. The board hopes that a quarter of its five million GCSE and A-level entries will be marked next summer on screen.

Mr Tomlinson, who will complete his review in July, hopes that the combination of new technology and old-fashioned standards will revive an examination system that even government regulators admit is creaking. A recent survey found that nearly three quarters of a million schoolchildren — one in ten — persuade their parents to do all their homework, while 85 per cent were “helped” by them.

Graham Able, chairman of the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference of 240 leading schools, said this month that the group wanted a “drastic reduction” in coursework, which first became a major feature of school examinations when GCSEs replaced O levels in 1988. He said teachers should make their own judgments of pupils’ work throughout the year.

Employers’ organisations have expressed reservations, blaming it for a slide in boys’ performance. In 1987, boys and girls were at level-pegging in the last year of O level, with about 44 per cent of both being awarded a grade C or above. This year, 58.1 per cent of pupils managed the feat, but the rate was 62.4 per cent for girls and 53.6 per cent for boys. Girls have since managed similar feats at A level.

It is presumed that girls excel at the methodical skills required for consistent coursework, while boys perform best in the adrenalin rush of exams.

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