It does seem quite extraordinary that this year’s outstanding GCSE results were greeted as being symptomatic of exams that are too easy and which need to be reformed.
Kevin Courtney is the Deputy General Secretary of the National Union of Teachers (NUT), the largest teachers union
It does seem quite extraordinary that this year’s outstanding GCSE results (see graph 1) were greeted not as a result of hard work by both teachers and pupils but as being symptomatic of exams that are too easy and which need to be reformed. Especially when many of those same commentators are very happy to lambast schools at the bottom of the school league tables creating huge pressures to teach to the test.
Graph 1:
The NUT is not opposed to reviewing our qualifications system, especially with an expectation that most young people in future will remain in education or training to the age of 18. Rather than introducing ill considered, ad hoc and piecemeal changes seemingly at the whim of individual ministers and their personal prejudices about learning and achievement we need a considered and planned review.
This should be agreed with education professionals, universities, employers and the wider public. The government intends to discontinue modular examinations and return to a system where exams must be sat at the same time at the end of a two-year course.
Modular courses and qualifications, provided they are well designed, help ensure all young people are able to demonstrate their full knowledge and abilities. Spelling and grammar are clearly important, and qualifications in English should assess and accredit abilities in those areas.
Examinations in other subjects should assess abilities in those subjects specifically, rather than attempting also to assess ability in English. This is particularly important for young people who have English as an additional language or those who have learning difficulties such as dyslexia.
While the governmnet expends much energy on attempts to raise standards, while completely ignoring the undoubted present success rate, they are remarkably silent on one of the main barriers to many young people continuing in education. For many students the issue of being financially solvent enough to continue studying is a huge problem.
The reduction and confusion surrounding the education maintenance allowance will cast a shadow over these results as many students will find it difficult to continue in education despite having the grades and potential to do so.
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19 Responses to “Yet again the detractors seek to undermine GCSE results”
13eastie
For twenty-three years on the trot, GCSE “pass” rates have “improved”.
If this were simply down to chance, it could be expected to happen every 8 million years or so, which means that this year’s candidates are about ALL as lucky as lottery jackpot winners.
The only possible alternative explanation is that teachers en masse have successfully bet their reputations on heads rather than tails coming up twenty-three times in a row.
Certainly we should not credit the notions that:
a) successive governments have encouraged grade devaluation
b) “Mickey Mouse” GCSE’s in media studies, citizenship, food technology, social science demand any less of students than the languages and sciences that have been spurned in their place
c) exam boards compete for business on the basis of prospective result and league-table gains
To countenance any of these would be “unfair on the kids”: instead we should just carry on letting the government and the TUC tell them the lies that their prospective employers will never believe.
Mr. Sensible
I agree, Mr Courtney. I get so bored with the anual debate about whether the exams are getting easier or not. I think such a debate is a serious insult to our young peoples’ achievements, and if that goes on it is no wonder they become disenchanted.
On the point of the Coalition’s reforms, I agree with you on the scrapping of modular assessment, and surely such an assessment method as is being proposed is counterproductive in terms of employers; they want employees who are able to deliver good performence over a sustained period, rather than in just 1 2-hour block.
Further to that, was not the decision to introduce the English Bacoloriat in 2010 a big mistake? I think giving certain “traditional” subjects more status over others is wrong and won’t help to ‘rebalance the economy’ anyway; you need core subjects like English and Maths, but I think that should be that. But if they insist on doing it, wouldn’t it be a better idea to have waited until 2013 or 2014, to allow students to take it in to account when choosing their options? Accordingly, shouldn’t the figures for last year, this year and next be taken with a pinch of sault, rather than penalizing these students for not taking subjects they didn’t know were going to be given more weight?
Another ill-judged policy, by an education department that is becoming somewhat expert with them.
Ed's Talking Balls
The English Baccalaureate is a good idea. Schools shouldn’t feed students lies that all subjects are equal. Any employer would tell you that they’re not.
As for ‘ill-judged policy’, I’m glad that Gove is endorsing one of Labour’s few good policies (Academies) and has, albeit only very tentatively, given his support to free schools. The unions’ jealous guarding of the status quo, i.e. mediocrity, must be challenged.
Mr. Sensible
Ed I don’t agree with that, I’m afraid.
Firstly on the EBAC, you could make a case for any subject; yes languages are important, but equally one could argue that subjects such as Design and Technology are important if we’re to rebalance the economy. The Coalition talks a good game with that, but the fact is that the rhetoric from Vince Cable is not being matched by the actions of Michael Gove. I suggest you give today’s Guardian editorial a read; it points out that even the Tory-controled Education Select Committee recognizes some of this.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/25/gcse-ebac-drawbacks
And on your point about academies, you are correct to say that the system was started by the previous Labour government. In my view, Tony Blair’s system was introduced with good intentions, though I am unsure as to whether this was the best way to do it; I think a better idea would have been to allow schools that are performing well within a local authority area to work with those that are not; I think Ed Balls talked about federations towards the end of the last government. However, the Coalition has turned the aim of the previous system completely on its head by inviting every head and their dog to turn their school in to an academy, which I think is a big mistake.
My biggest objection to academies and ‘Free Schools’ is that it exposes another Coalition contradiction; they talk a good game with regard to democratic accountability, and yet they want to see the role for local democratically elected authorities in our education system to be almost non-existant. That is contrary to both accountability and localism. Also, Gove has failed to address how local authorities would deal with the shortfalls in their budgets for things such as SEN within maintained schools. I am opposed to the marketization of our education system.
I think you have a point Julie, and to add to that, I think it important that we selebrate our young peoples’ achievements given that they were making headlines last week for the wrong reasons. The commentators stayed quiet with the A Levels, but staying quiet for the GCSEs as well seems to have been too much for us to hope for.
Leon Wolfson
@6 – So provide students with information about what’s valuable. Rather than pushing something which will turn off, badly, the non-academic who could excel in more career-orientated subjects off education entirely.
And of course we can’t have people studying new media or other high-tech subjects which might be important for the economy and let the poor earn a deacent wage, no.
And of course you engage in a round of union bashing for good measure. At this stage, I’m quite happy calling for closed shops again…
Moreover, “There is simply no way that, at some point in the 80s or 90s, 17-18 year olds suddenly became dramatically more intelligent.”
Oh yea? so, you have never heard of the Flynn Effect then. Because it’s very real, and makes a mockery of your argument.