News
Gary Neville says A-Level exams are ‘prehistoric’ and should be binned off
As teenagers across the UK are getting their results, Neville thinks the current education system needs rejigging.
Ex-footballer and entrepreneur Gary Neville has described exams as “prehistoric” and believes traditional assessments should be binned off for a better alternative as thousands of students are receiving their A-Level results this week.
The former Manchester United and England defender turned pundit, football commentator and co-owner of Salford City was appearing on BBC Breakfast on Thursday morning when he was asked his opinion on the current school systems and progression to A-Level and, in turn, university.
Neville, 48, who helped found the University Academy 92 higher education institution with his former Man United teammates and now business partners, stated. “I don’t believe you should work for 16 years at school and then it all depends on a two-hour assessment.”
I mean, he has a point — we’ve all had a bad exam (or three) in our time.
“I honestly believe that it needs ripping up; I think you should be judged on your body of work”, says Neville. “There are easier ways to gain consistency and assessment through marking people over their coursework and that does happen, obviously… but I believe we need to move it all towards that.”
Adding that there is one thing he agrees with Education Secretary Gillian Keegan on, who also appeared on the programme to discuss A-Level results day, he said that he also believes “in 10 years time no employer is going to look at your GCSEs, you’re A-Level result.
“They’re going to look at your experience in the workplace but to get into the workplace in the first place you may be judged on what you’ve achieved in these [exam] results and I think what you should have is a career passport: a body of work that you be able to proud and should be able to refer to your employers.
“They’re not going to look at an exam which is so robotic and methodical and is out of date, I believe, in 2023”. UA92, in contrast, takes a much more practical, often coursework-based approach to teaching and has made a real point of not just being another place to pick up a qualification.
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With countless students across the UK having received their crucial A-Level results today, it is estimated that the proportion of A or A* grades is 27.2%, which is down from a peak of 44.8% during the pandemic — the steepest drop being in England, where 26.5% of exams papers received the top grade.
Interestingly, private and grammar schools saw the largest drop in top grades compared to last year despite still not making up for the disproportionate boost in grades those types of schools had over the course of the pandemic.
As The Guardian put it rather succinctly and based solely on the statistics, “the gap between private and state schools in England closed but private pupils are still far ahead”.
Do you agree with Gary Neville, are exams out of date in modern-day education and the professional world? Either way, for anyone getting their results today, just remember you’re much more than a grade. We once got you a U in science (we didn’t even know they existed).
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Featured Image — BBC Breakfast (via Twitter)/Unsplash
News
Plans unveiled to deliver 50,000 council and ‘genuinely affordable’ homes in Greater Manchester
Emily Sergeant
Plans to deliver 50,000 council and ‘genuinely affordable’ homes in Greater Manchester have been unveiled.
By removing ‘blockers’ to development and transforming disused public land into new housing schemes, Greater Manchester Mayor Bev Craig has set out her plan to tackle the housing crisis and deliver ‘a new generation’ of homes – with 50,000 new ‘genuinely affordable’ homes to be available across the city region by 2039.
It’s expected that 10,000 of these homes will either be built, on site, or in the pipeline with planning permission ready to go by May 2028.
To meet the scale of this ambition and deliver the homes the region needs, Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) says it will need to ‘pull every lever at [its] disposal’, from remediating brownfield land, to bringing forward dormant sites in public ownership.
That’s why the Mayor will be asking Greater Manchester‘s public bodies to carry out a public land review and identify sites that could be brought forward to deliver homes.
GMCA has already used its Brownfield Housing Fund to support several schemes that are delivering thousands of affordable homes – including social rent homes – as part of the £2 billion Good Growth Fund.
If you’re unfamiliar, the Good Growth Fund is investing in a pipeline of projects to deliver new homes, regenerate town centres, create jobs, and build infrastructure to connect people and places.
“When I was Manchester City Council Leader, I built more council and social homes than Manchester had built in 25 years,” Bev Craig declared. “But we need to go further and faster in every bit of Greater Manchester.
“We will be leading by example when it comes to freeing up disused and dormant public land for development and I’m calling on other Government bodies to join us.
“I know first-hand the security that a Council house brings, and that’s why I am absolutely committed to delivering the Council and social homes that people here in Greater Manchester need, so everyone can have the foundation of a good life in our city region.”
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Currently, land supply for 78,585 new homes of all tenures up to 2030 has been identified.
Greater Manchester is in line to receive an initial £1.8 billion from the Government’s Social and Affordable Homes Programme, and the Mayor will meet with Government in the coming weeks to set out joint plans to achieve these ambitions.
Featured Image – Benjamin Elliott (via Unsplash)
News
Government sets out multi-million-pound plan to move UK away from animal testing in science
Emily Sergeant
A £22m push to ramp up the UK’s move away from animal testing in science is set to bring together cutting-edge tech and research.
The latest figures show there were 2.54 million animal testing procedures in Great Britain in 2025, which is down 3.8% on 2024, but with a further update due to be released later this year, the Government is now moving to ‘capitalise’ on that momentum with funding to shift the nation onto alternative testing options.
A dedicated national research hub and nine new high-tech projects are planned to develop ‘better ways’ to test medicines on human biology rather than animals.
According to the Government, this means treatments for conditions like cancer and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) could be developed ‘faster’ and ‘more precisely’ to not only help patients but crucially also move science away from traditional animal testing.
At the heart of the plans is a new Pre-clinical Translational Models Hub – based in Cambridge and backed by £20 million in Government funding, which will work to build and share models of human tissue, grown from NHS patients, to test new treatments.
The new hub will accelerate the development of testing on ‘organoids’ – tiny, simplified versions of a human gut, tumour or brain, using cells donated by patients.
Because these ‘organoids’ retain crucial features of a patient’s own biology, they will help researchers learn how a real person may respond to a drug and provide additional insights that can complement information that is currently obtained from animals.
Scientists will then be able to use these cutting-edge techniques in their own labs to work out which medicines are worth pursuing.
Overall, it’s hoped that the move will slash the time it takes to get ‘potentially life-changing’ treatments to market.
Alongside the funding for the new Hub, nine cutting-edge projects aimed at identifying new methods of animal-free scientific testing – from beating heart cells in a dish, to lab-grown human ear models, and AI that predicts how medicines move through the body – are being funded.
Sadly, many of these still rely on testing on dogs and monkeys, as it stands.
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“This marks another significant step forward in the UK’s move away from animal testing in science and research,” commented Science Minister Chris McDonald.
“This is all about backing our world-leading researchers and innovators to improve lives, giving them the tools they need to deliver more effective treatments for horrendous diseases like cancer, while also preventing the need for animal testing wherever possible.
“It’s also a boost for our life sciences sector, fuelling opportunities for new investment and new jobs, and ensuring Britain is better off.”
Featured Image – Pixnio
Danny Jones -
17th August 2023 
