Alison Wolf rightly deplores the loss of university control over the school curriculum, but in her book Does Education Matter? she distinguishes between education proper - higher education - and basic and core skills at school level, for which the government is responsible.
This stance has led to the progressive shift of education control from academia to politics. The recent A-level fiasco shows the consequences of this abrogation of responsibility: we are starting to look to the international baccalaureate for our standards.
Nigel Probert
Porthmadog