We need rescuing from the A-Level charade

Former schools inspector Chris Woodhead attacks exam system

I had restrained myself from once again commenting on the lamentable rise in the A level success rates this year, they inexorably continue to show remarkable success from teachers and students and continue to prove to be a fairly useless yardstick for universities and prospective employers. They are becoming meaningless as more and more students attain the A grade, this year 25% of them did so, how on earth can higher education establishments choose the very best when the trend is for everyone to succeed?

The former Chief Inspector for Schools, Chris Woodhead comes to the same conclusions in article in today’s Sunday Times;

” The pass rate has improved each year for 25 years. This year 3% of candidates failed; 25% achieved an A grade. Top universities are now setting their own admissions tests. They have no alternative. Every candidate has three or four A grades so A-level results are useless. They are suspect, too, for research conducted over a number of years by Robert Coe of the University of Durham suggests that candidates of similar intellectual ability achieve higher grades today than they would have done in the past. A candidate who gained an A grade today, for example, would have been awarded a B in 1996 and a C in 1988.”

” Ministers and their officials have a standard defence against the accusation that the A-level examination has become easier. They argue that because the examination has changed so radically in terms of syllabuses and the nature of the assessment, it is impossible to make meaningful comparisons. This is nonsense. The whole point is that the examination has been changed. It is the nature of these changes that explains the loss of intellectual rigour.”

We have passed the stage where someone needs to take this bull by the horns and many universities are now conducting their own entrance examinations to help them determine just who are the brightest pupils. There should be no need for this, the A level examination should be able to tell them who the top achievers are.

Woodhead proposes turning the clocks back and rescuing the examination system from politicians who like nothing better than to crow about improved results for electoral advantage;

” What is to be done? The first and most fundamental need is to rescue public examinations from politicians, irrespective of party, who inevitably succumb to the temptation to dumb down examinations to secure apparent improvements in standards and therefore, hopefully, electoral advantage. Top universities should be invited to collaborate with the highest achieving state and independent schools to create a new A-level system with sufficient intellectual rigour to challenge and identify the most able. This new examination should be independent of ministers and their officials. It will be an examination that can be failed, and many will fail. In other words, a real examination.”

Examinations which produce a failure rate of only 3% are a farce and a charade, the growing trend to produce a broader band of A rate passes makes a complete mockery of education, we need to return to real challenges which value real success and help prospective employers and universities choose the best possible candidates. Otherwise we will continue to find graduates applying for jobs who are not equipped with the most basic skills (yes I have dealt with applications from those who cannot even spell or string a few words together to form a comprehensible sentence.)

“It seems very clear that even in the Upper Sixth, these youngsters have not mastered basic spelling and punctuation or the ability to express themselves clearly,” said Nick Seaton, the chairman of the Campaign for Real Education.”

From a report in The Sunday Telegraph.