A-levels becoming 'just a leaving certificate'

The Guardian reports in the UK, that A-levels becoming 'just a leaving certificate', because of it's inability to differentiate between the good and the brightest.

However, the principle behind allocating university places should not depend on making it available to the brightest, but those who are able to complete the course. Given that A-levels is pretty objective as to the capability of school leavers, we can pretty much bunk the view that kids are getting dumber. As a matter of fact, they are getting smarter thanks to more effective teaching and a healthy economy that is more conducive to learning.

This is the paradox of workforce shortages, on one hand you have able people who can't get into medicine after leaving high-school, and on the other hand you have a society which is terribly short of doctors.

If the retirees of tomorrow find they have mortgage their homes to pay for healthcare, they have only themselves to blame for not funding medical places at universities.