Gove drops plan to abolish GCSEs Michael Gove, education secretary, is abandoning his plan to abolish GCSEs after weeks of criticism from MPs, the qualifications regulator, school inspectors, headteachers, opposition parties and trade unions. Mr Gove set out plans last year to establish a new qualification called the "EBC" to replace the GCSE in core subjects from 2017. Unlike the GCSE, only one examining board would be allowed to offer the qualification in each subject, which would also be more content-heavy. The proposals were attacked by the Commons education committee last week for "trying to do too much, too quickly." Mr Gove now intends to increase the content within the GCSE system. On Thursday, he will release national curriculum documents setting out this approach. Stephen Twigg, shadow education secretary, said: "This is a humiliating climbdown from Michael Gove. It shows why he should have listened to business leaders, headteachers and experts in the first place and not come up with a plan on the back of an envelope. But Nick Clegg, deputy prime minister, said on Thursday morning the education secretary was right to change his mind after consulting on the plans. "He's quite rightly listened and he's going to make a statement today which I think will show parents and teachers that we are as ambitious as ever as a coalition government for higher, better standards," he said on his weekly LBC phone-in programme. Mr Clegg said he did not like the original plan which he said was "a two-tier system where you tell one set of kids you are not bright enough to proceed." The government will also announce a new method of measuring school performance. Nick Gibb, former schools minister, insisted the government was still committed to making GCSEs more rigorous. He said Ofqual needed to prevent grade inflation and exam boards needed to reform. "There is a determination for an aged 16 qualification, the GCSE will be rigorous, it will be on a par with the best in the world," he told the BBC's Today programme on Thursday morning. That's the new objective that Ofqual has, they will now be looking around the world at the best exams and comparing those with the qualifications we have in this country. At the moment, schools are ranked by what proportion of their students attain Cs in GCSE English, maths and three other subjects. This ranking system will be replaced by two new measures. The first will assess the proportion of children attaining a C or better in English and maths. The second metric will be a value-added score, which will record how far children have progressed in eight subjects between the ages of 11 and 16.