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Gove said he had warned the last government that state-school pupils were being 'misled' about qualifications. Photograph: Sang Tan/AP
Education secretary Michael Gove today blamed the Labour government for "betraying a generation" by allowing thousands of pupils to take "soft" subjects at school.
Gove was commenting on the Guardian's revelation that top universities are issuing guidance which acknowledges officially for the first time that they favour students who study traditional subjects at A-level.
A handbook compiled by the Russell Group, a lobbying group for Oxford, Cambridge and 18 other leading universities, confirms rumours that have circulated for years that they favour traditional academic subjects over newer ones such as business studies and photography.
Gove said he had warned the last government that state-school pupils were being "misled" about qualifications. "A generation have been betrayed by Labour ministers who denied poorer children the chance to go to top universities," he said today.
Gove said the government was trying to reverse the "dramatic" rise in the number of children taking "less rigorous, non-academic qualifications".
For the first time this year, annual league tables – published last month – measured schools' performance by the proportion of pupils who obtain the new "English baccalaureate". This is awarded to teenagers who achieve GCSEs in English, maths, a science, a foreign language and a humanity, such as history or geography, at grade C or above. "This reflects the subjects the Russell group universities have said they value most," Gove said.
In 2004, about 15,000 non-academic qualifications were taken in schools. By 2010, this had risen to about 575,000.
Andy Burnham, Labour's shadow education secretary, said that while a clear focus on academic rigour was important, society needed a broad view of success. "We must also focus more on developing routes into work for young people who don't plan to go to university. Michael Gove has very little to say to these young people, and his curriculum and league table reforms are sending a very clear message that vocational learning is second best," Burnham said.
"With youth unemployment at a record high, we need to equip young people with a broad range of knowledge and skills to help them enter the modern workforce."
Labour had made changes to focus the curriculum on English and maths, and the take-up of single sciences had increased "significantly" as a result of Labour policies, he said.
Burnham had previously accused Gove of foisting a vision of education from the 1950s on to students and schools. "It is a strange message indeed in this day and age to say it's OK to do Latin but not ICT," he said.
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