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* Ministers' reforms to broaden A levels will not help students in the workplace or at university, the conference heard. But a maths A level could add 10 per cent to a graduate salary.

Research by Anna Vignoles of the London School of Economics' Centre for Economic Performance, and the University of Newcastle's Peter Dolton found that employers do not value students who have studied a broader sixth-form curriculum.

The researchers warned: "Unless the government decides to impose curriculum breadth it is unlikely that (the changes) will have a huge effect on the curriculum actually taken by pupils."

The paper said that UK students sit a much narrower curriculum than many of their European counterparts. In 1997, of students sitting three A levels, only 32 per cent combined arts and sciences. Just 9 per cent of all A level entries were in mathematics.

Soapbox, page 16