Schools are still spoon-feeding their students. Today¿s 'A' Level results must not deter Michael Gove from his exam reforms

By Kathy Gyngell for The Daily Mail

Published: 16:21 GMT, 16 August 2012 | Updated: 16:22 GMT, 16 August 2012

 

'The report of my death was an exaggeration', Mark Twain wrote to a friend in May 1987. So too is the idea that today’s 'A' Level results mark the end of grade inflation in any meaningful way or, indeed, the beginning of exam reform.

Yes, for the first time in two decades, there has been a fall in the proportion of 'A' Level candidates awarded an A or A*. But to deduce from this that 'A' Levels have got tougher is premature.

Grade inflation is one side of the coin. Knowledge dumbing down is the other. Sadly, both are all alive and well. 

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'A' Level results day: For the first time in two decades, there has been a fall in the proportion of top grades awarded

The overwhelming evidence remains that 'A' Levels, introduced in the early 1950’s and set by universities as a rigorous preparation for degree courses, have, in more recent years, been stripped of their core content and made easier to pass. Until 1982, the pass rate was set at 70 per cent. Since then it has risen year-on-year, up to 98 per cent in 2012.

Earlier this year there was, finally, some admission by Ofqual that key subjects have been stripped of their core academic content; that, as we all already knew, candidates had to study less to obtain good grades.

But though Michael Gove has promised to toughen up the qualification system and hand back exam setting to our top Russell Group academics from the bureaucrats, reform has yet to happen.

He’s told Ofqual to make sure university ownership of the exams is "real and committed, not a tick-box exercise...I am increasingly concerned that current 'A' Levels …. fall short of commanding the level of confidence we would want to see."

And quite right he is to be concerned. 

The fact is that 'A' Levels no longer prepare students properly for university.

In my day, only a few of those accepted for Oxbridge had the three, four and five ‘A’s that seem to be routine today. Two As and a B were more the norm. However, exams then were not made up of ‘course work’; they depended on our knowing our subject - on sheer learning and our ability to write cogently and grammatically at speed. This sorted the wheat from the chaff.

Today, over half of 633 academics polled by Cambridge University's exam board, Cambridge Assessment, believed that students possess the writing or critical thinking skills needed for their degree courses. Three-fifths said their universities offered catch up classes for first-year undergraduates.

Another startling example of this decline in standards was reported recently by Campaign for Real Education.

For 15 years from the mid 1980’s the electronics department at York University gave its new students the same 50 question multiple choice maths test to check what they had learnt at school. By the early 2000’s the average test scores of the top students had dropped from 78 per cent to 54 per cent. York went on to abandon the test because it found that most of their current students simply could not complete it.

Despite such compelling evidence, Michael Gove’s instruction that exam boards and ministers "take a step back" from dictating the content of A-levels and hand the power back to academics drew howls of protest from the teaching profession.

Michael Gove's suggestion that 'A' Level content should be more influenced by academics than exam boards was met with howls of protest

Amongst those quick to condemn were Mary Bousted, leader of the ATL teachers' union. She accused the government of acting on a "whim" rather than on evidence and dismissed his instruction as a 'quick-fix gimmick'. Predictably the NUT general secretary Christine Blower was also negative: "Yet again we see top-down initiatives being brought into schools regardless of what the teaching profession may think.” Of course she thought the unions should have been consulted first.

The General Secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders also weighed in. So too, quite extraordinarily, did the Independent Schools Chief, Neil Roskilly (a former sixth form centre principal). "I think it is elitism,” he complained, revealing his own confusion between elitism and rigour.

The increase in the numbers taking maths and science announced this year is of course very welcome and good news (the drop in languages is not) - but it is not enough to vindicate these complaints.

Gove’s move, if he wins through, is likely to lead to fewer students getting top grades, to the abolition of modules and retakes, and to longer essay questions in exams. The Coalition has said it wants the new 'A' Levels to be taught from 2014.

It will not be a day too soon if Britain is to raise its standards and start competing, and if it to respect the potential of its young people.

To quote Mark Twain again, ‘actions speak louder than words, but not so often’.

We can only hope that Ofqual’s Chief Executive, Glenys Stacey, is up for the task Michael Gove has set her and that she will back him all the way with his essential exam reform programme.

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