If the most predictable event of the academic year, in both timing and content, is the annual punch-up over alleged grade inflation that follows the issue of examination results in August, then the running debate over whether one A-level is worth as much as another is not far behind.
Broadening the curriculum is always contentious. Tom Brown’s Schooldays – or at least the 1970s TV adaptation – shows school bully Flashman protesting at headmaster Thomas Arnold’s extension of the “gentleman’s education” of Latin and Greek to include dubious novelties such as a geography.
