Thursday, February 19, 2015
By Kathy Gyngell for The Daily Mail
Published: 15:01 GMT, 24 August 2012 | Updated: 15:01 GMT, 24 August 2012
A*s all round? If grade inflation is not checked, the natural result is the devaluing of the GCSE qualification
Michael Gove: His aim to raise the bar in the teaching profession is a noble one
Published: 15:01 GMT, 24 August 2012 | Updated: 15:01 GMT, 24 August 2012
Teachers are complaining that this summer’s tougher GCSE pass mark is not fair. But are GSCEs worth anything at all when so many kids can walk off with 10 A*s? To GCSE or not to GSCE at all is the real question for Michael Gove.
After years of grade inflation and manipulation no resetting of the GSCE exam pass level can be fair. It will be tougher for those pupils who fall into the new regime. But so be it. Standards have been appallingly low. Ofqual, rightly, appears to be trying hard to shake up GCSEs and teachers need to stop complaining. They would do better to take this opportunity to teach their pupils that all-important lesson of life: that it is not fair and never will be.
It beggars belief that any teacher can think that toughening up these exams is unnecessary or that temporary 'fairness' issues can possibly be an argument for keeping the status quo. Employers have been saying for ages that GCSEs do not prepare children for the workforce.
A*s all round? If grade inflation is not checked, the natural result is the devaluing of the GCSE qualification The lesson that teachers and pupils need to take home is that present-day survival and success involves everyone working a bit harder. They should reflect too on whether these results yet mark the change that is needed.
After Michael Gove insisted on TV that the 'first ever fall' in GCSE results was entirely free of political pressure, you might imagine that the drop had been huge.
It was not. Certainly not by comparison with the massive rise that has taken place over the years.
Top grade passes only fell, for English, by 1.5 points in the numbers getting a Grade C. However, the change was enough to create a furore.
The result has been 'fixed', some teachers have alleged. Thousands of pupils will be deprived of their chance to do the requisite A levels to get into to university, others have complained.
Well, good.
It may be harsh, but frankly if these kids cannot be brought to the standard of literacy required to achieve 66 per cent in GCSE English, it is a moot question whether should they be going to university at all. It is hard to credit that these angry teachers should view anything less as an adequate requirement. Employers are perpetually complaining about the appalling standards of literacy their graduate trainees display.
The truth is that the reactions to yesterday’s GCSE results reflect the woefully low professional standards and expectations that beset the entire education system.
Michael Gove promised that the bar for entry into the teaching profession would be raised during the first year of government. He said: "Countries with cultures as different as Finland and Singapore have this single factor in common – teaching is simply one of the most prestigious courses that any graduate can follow. That is because the entry into teaching is strictly policed; because only the best can teach and because the competition is fierce."
That was three years ago. But nothing has changed.
Today, as I write, a Grade C in English and Maths at GCSE is still the abysmally low requirement for teaching at secondary school level. Talk about the blind leading the blind. No wonder any change to the Grade C pass mark has proved so deeply threatening to teachers who may have achieved no more themselves.
The simple fact is that GCSE reform is not enough. Michael Gove will only end decades of falling standards if he brings back 'O' levels, if he raises the entry bar to teaching, and if he removes the thousands of unqualified teaching assistants from the classroom. Children are affected by the standard of conversation and literacy around them.
Of course he faces bitter resistance on this from the Lib Dems as well as from the educational establishment. The backlash just two months ago over what he - at least for a while - planned to be the biggest overhaul of the examination system in nearly 30 years, was intense. Though Chris Woodhead hailed him as a hero, the cross party education select committee immediately opposed him, Nick Clegg played dirty and said it would create an unfair two tier system, and - no surprise - the teachers' unions laid into him too.
The model he described on the radio in June was the British designed 'O' level, last taken here in 1987 but, amazingly, still in use in Singapore and still marked by British exam boards. Why they get something better from here than we do is nothing less than mindboggling. It is this, rather than a 'reform' of GCSEs, that is needed.
Michael Gove: His aim to raise the bar in the teaching profession is a noble one Whether or not Mr Gove has changed his stance since then is not clear. He repeatedly refused to answer questions from Labour MPs at the time about whether the leaked details of his proposals printed in the Daily Mail were correct. Officials said they would be subject to consultation. That could be newspeak for being kicked into the long grass.
As ever, Michael Gove’s instinct is right. Whether he has the backbone or the backing to do it is another matter.
Dumping the discredited GCSE examination would end the malaise that has troubled the education system here for decades, that has set us back internationally right through to the recent international university league tables (where we should be performing much better). It would break the culture of collusion between government and the teaching profession over the traditional benchmark on which secondary schools are measured – the number of pupils getting 5 GCSE grades A-C. It would halt that Orwellian farce of pretending that standards are rising when in fact they are falling.
Today’s results are a mini culture-shock moment. That is why the likes of Brian Lightman, the General Secretary of the ASCL, are hitting back with the spurious accusation that the government has manipulated the grades.
It is ironic that this comes after years of Labour governments who bear the real responsibility for landing us in this iniquitous grade inflation, who left a generation of young people in a cloud cuckoo land about their ability. Those same young people are now facing a sharp wake-up call.
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