The full rigour of externally-marked exams would be reserved for the advanced level - which would become the dominant, end-of-school academic qualification.
They find a a positive effect on test scores, compulsary school grades, choosing an academic high-school track, high-school grades, probability of attending college, and average education by age 24.
Britain, for example, tried for two decades to channel many of the less academic school-leavers into polytechnics that had been set up to provide degrees equal in quality to those offered by the universities, but with a more technical and vocational bent.