The Government will not "water down the standard of A levels", education and employment minister Tessa Blackstone insisted this week.

Baroness Blackstone was keen to appease her detractors amid speculation that the A level will be abolished as she moves towards "a single overarching certificate" for 18-year-olds.

Outlining the Government's plans for reforming the system of qualifications for 16 to 19-year-olds, she said: "I should make it absolutely clear that there can be no compromise on standards. The system must retain real challenges of depth, while at the same time encouraging a wider range of study."

Speaking at the Institute of Education's post-16 centre, she said the Government wanted to go further than the recommendations from Sir Ron Dearing's review of qualifications for 16 to 19-year-olds. "The Dearing 16 to 19 review showed very clearly that reform is needed," she said.

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"But it is not the whole story. I want to use consultation to determine how we can build on Dearing."

People should sit a combination of A levels and vocational qualifications, all with key skills exams. The disaffected needed an opportunity to re-engage. Participation, she said, must be higher.

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"General National Vocational Qualifications have a key role to play in our strategy for broadening advanced-level study," she said.

She acknowledged the recent tide of criticism against GNVQs, lamenting that they had been "introduced at breakneck speed with insufficient piloting".

National Vocational Qualifications were also "central to the Government's agenda", she said. Baroness Blackstone wants NVQs to be developed, not narrowly towards specific, industry-defined requirements but as part of "packages of qualifications linked through the overarching certificate" for all. Schools will be encouraged and "enabled" to increase work-related elements in study programmes.