Let’s end the annual torture of GCSE resits – and give students qualifications they’ll actually use | Polly Toynbee

The ceremony has one great national purpose: to elevate the 60% who pass their crucial 5 GCSEs including maths and Englishto a superior destiny on a level 3 course and up – and to stamp down on the rest.

Without grade 4, many courses are closed to them – whole vistas of new horizons, anything above level 2, however good they might be at, say, graphic design, cabinet making, gardening, art, caring, engineering or cooking.

To make matters worse, the government is abolishing generally recognised BTecs and City & Guilds – “a car crash”, says Hughes.

To function in society everyone needs to read, write, count and use the internet, but not everyone needs quadratic equations, trigonometry or an understanding of pi.

It’s a set of modules online to be taken any time, even on a smartphone, with instant feedback suggesting helpfully where you went wrong.

It wouldn’t be that easy, as we all know, struggling to calculate what the price was before VAT was added, or what your pension might yield in 18 years.