Clegg: GCSE replacement will increase rigour and confidence in system Deputy prime minister Nick Clegg discusses the government's plans for replacing the GCSE exam system Link to this video A new examination to replace GCSEs in England will "increase rigour and confidence" in the system, Nick Clegg says. The Liberal Democrat deputy prime minister made his comments as he prepared to launch the biggest overhaul of secondary school testing for a generation with the Conservative education secretary, Michael Gove, after negotiating a plan agreeable to both sides of the coalition. The changes are designed to introduce more academic rigour to exams for 15- and 16-year-olds amid concerns about falling standards and dumbing down since the introduction of GCSEs in the late 1980s. The joint appearance on Monday will mark something of a rapprochement between the two cabinet ministers, who clashed in June when Gove's plans for a return to an O-level-style exam system were leaked. Clegg said at the time that he was against "anything that would lead to a two-tier system where children at quite a young age are somehow cast on a scrap heap." The Lib Dem leader, who has since been involved in intense discussions with Gove and ensured that his lieutenant, David Laws, was appointed a schools minister in the recent cabinet reshuffle, has forced the education secretary to make two major concessions: Gove originally proposed a system similar to the old two-tier system in which brighter students sat O-levels and less able ones sat CSE exams. Pupils will start to be taught for the new exams in autumn 2015, a year later than expected. The delay is to allow schools to make proper preparations for the wide-ranging change. Speaking to reporters on Monday morning ahead of the unveiling of the new exams, Clegg said: "I think you can raise standards, increase rigour and confidence in our exam system, but still do so in a way which is a single tier, which covers the vast majority of children in this country. And those are the principles upon which this whole reform will be based. There will also be only one exam board. Ministers believe exam boards have in recent years competed for business by making it easier for pupils to obtain higher grades. Clegg said the changes, which only apply to England, will do "three simple things." Firstly, give parents confidence in the exams their children are taking; secondly, raise standards for all our children in schools in the country, but thirdly and crucially, not exclude any children from the new exam system. All of those elements will be in the details which we will be revealing this week. The announcement by Gove and Clegg follows the row when students were marked down to curb grade inflation in line with the wishes, if not the instructions, of ministers. But Gove said it would be a scandal if he intervened. The joint appearance was brought forward from Tuesday to Monday after details of the new exams were leaked to the Mail on Sunday. Labour criticised the government for leaking details of the reform, but declined to reject them out of hand. Politicians should not set an artificial limit on the number of top grades, rather, the best work should be rewarded. There has been no consultation on these plans; rather they have been drawn up in secret and leaked to select media outlets. Sir Mike Tomlinson, the former chief inspector of schools, said he was generally positive about the proposals, but questions remained. "The first, of course, is the obvious one - that the examination, whichever form it takes, should be available to a wide range of ability and should not, as has been worried about, marginalise some group of pupils," he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme. As a teacher I remember that system well ... terribly difficult decisions had to be made as to whether you entered a student. He went on: "I think the other question for me is that there are some subjects now available to students at GCSE which cannot ... be tested simply by a three-hour examination; for example, art, dance or music." Tomlinson warned there was an "obsession with continually fiddling" with the exam system, but said the latest round of changes could be an improvement. I am very much in favour of having only one board able to set examinations in English or maths or the sciences rather than the number at the present.