The revelations in the Daily Telegraph about improper practice at examination meetings raise a number of questions. Firstly, let's not pretend that there is anything new in individual examiners overstepping the mark at meetings when advising teachers about how to get the best marks in GCSE and GCE exams. Off the cuff comments about the ease of exams or advice to teachers about what to teach or emphasise may be too careless, but are not necessarily symptomatic of a deeper issue. Examiners have been saying this kind of thing for years. They are nearly all practising or former teachers, so their inclination is to support colleagues as far as possible. As exam boards have become less aloof and keen to offer better customer service, examiners will occasionally overdo it. They are only human.
No, the real issue here is the one which other commentators and teachers have raised: the commercialisation of the exam system. Exam boards are competing for schools' business and there is serious money involved. Boards sponsor text books which teach to their syllabus and teachers shop around to be with the board which not only has the most suitable specification, but which also gives the most generous grades. You only have to trawl the professional forums for a while to find teachers talking of switching boards for better grades.
Despite the efforts of Ofqual and the JQC (Joint Qualification Council) there are issues about the relative value of grades from board to board. That's not to say that the exam boards are deliberately lowering standards, but they do give increasing levels of support to teachers as part of their service and with the aim of keeping them as loyal customers. Yes, customers.
There is a way of taking away the profit motive from the boards and to clean up what is a somewhat discredited system. We could have one single examination board offering a range of specifications to ensure the choice which teachers rightly value. I believe it is desirable that not every A-Level French student should study the same prescribed list of authors or topics. So why not allow the one board to offer, say, three alternative specifications? One could offer a prescribed list of texts or topics (Ã la WJEC), another could allow teachers more freedom (like AQA or Edexcel) and a third might offer a specification more weighted to language with less cultural content.
The government and Ofqual are right to be looking at this issue. It is not new, but the Telegraph story, albeit a little over-heated, may bring it into sharper focus.
No, the real issue here is the one which other commentators and teachers have raised: the commercialisation of the exam system. Exam boards are competing for schools' business and there is serious money involved. Boards sponsor text books which teach to their syllabus and teachers shop around to be with the board which not only has the most suitable specification, but which also gives the most generous grades. You only have to trawl the professional forums for a while to find teachers talking of switching boards for better grades.
Despite the efforts of Ofqual and the JQC (Joint Qualification Council) there are issues about the relative value of grades from board to board. That's not to say that the exam boards are deliberately lowering standards, but they do give increasing levels of support to teachers as part of their service and with the aim of keeping them as loyal customers. Yes, customers.
There is a way of taking away the profit motive from the boards and to clean up what is a somewhat discredited system. We could have one single examination board offering a range of specifications to ensure the choice which teachers rightly value. I believe it is desirable that not every A-Level French student should study the same prescribed list of authors or topics. So why not allow the one board to offer, say, three alternative specifications? One could offer a prescribed list of texts or topics (Ã la WJEC), another could allow teachers more freedom (like AQA or Edexcel) and a third might offer a specification more weighted to language with less cultural content.
The government and Ofqual are right to be looking at this issue. It is not new, but the Telegraph story, albeit a little over-heated, may bring it into sharper focus.
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