The General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) is an academic qualification awarded in a specified subject, generally taken in a number of subjects by students aged 14–16 in secondary education in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and is equivalent to a Level 2 (A*- C) and Level 1 (D- G) in Key Skills. (In Scotland, the equivalent is the Standard Grade.) Some students may decide to take one or more GCSEs before or afterwards; people may apply for GCSEs at any point either internally through an institution or externally. The education systems of other British territories, such as Gibraltar, and the former British dominion of South Africa, also use the qualifications, as supplied by the same examination boards. The International version of the GCSE is the IGCSE, which can be taken anywhere in the world, and which includes additional options, for example relating to coursework and the language used.
Education to GCSE level is often required of students who study for the International Baccalaureate or to GCE Advanced Level (A-level). GCSE exams were introduced as the compulsory school-leavers' examinations in the late 1980s (the first exams being taken in the summer of 1988) by the Conservative Party government, replacing the Certificate of Secondary Education (CSE) and GCE Ordinary Level (O-Level) examinations. In September 2012, Michael Gove as Secretary of State for Education, announced plans to scrap GCSE exams for core subjects in England and to introduce a replacement qualification in 2015 called the English Baccalaureate Certificate.
Read more about General Certificate Of Secondary Education: Structure, History and Format, Special Educational Needs
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Good critics, who have stamped out poet’s hopes;
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Good kings, who disembowelled for a tax;
Good Popes, who brought all good to jeopardy;
Good Christians, who sat still in easy-chairs;
And damned the general world for standing up.—
Now, may the good God pardon all good men!”
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861)
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
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—Robert Musil (1880–1942)
“Columbus stood in his age as the pioneer of progress and enlightenment. The system of universal education is in our age the most prominent and salutary feature of the spirit of enlightenment, and it is peculiarly appropriate that the schools be made by the people the center of the day’s demonstration. Let the national flag float over every schoolhouse in the country and the exercises be such as shall impress upon our youth the patriotic duties of American citizenship.”
—Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)