I was perusing the news from Blighty last night and found this article on government proposals for reform of the A-Level (see also the ‘related articles it links to). That’s the exam that students in the UK (excluding Scotland) do at the end of school (age 18) before heading off to university, to other training or into jobs.
The UK Education Secretary wants universities to have a much greater role in driving A-levels. He has concern that they are not doing what they should; that is, preparing students for university. The exam boards are failing to do their job in ensuring a quality qualification, and this role should be taken away from them. The perennial issue of grade inflation also rears its head – that’s where year after year the grades awarded to students get higher – some would say it’s because the teachers are teaching better – others that the exams are simply getting easier.
The complaint about falling entry standards at university is common – if courses ran at the level of difficulty they did 20 years ago, with a similar amount of assumed knowledge, there would be a huge and unacceptable drop-out rate, therefore standards have to fall.
The problem that I have with these articles and the debate in general is that so much of it is based on ideology. For example, ask yourself the following questions.
1. Should universities be there for the ‘elite’, or should they be open to all? And who should pay for them?
2. Is the purpose of an exam at the age of 18 to prepare a student for university, or is it to prepare him or her for the workplace, or for life, or what?
3. Should exams identify the performance of students relative to their cohort, or should they identify the absolute performance of the students (i.e. would it be acceptable for every student in an exam to get a grade ‘A’ if they all were good students)? Are ‘grades’ the way to go anyway?
4. Who should have control of the examination process? Should it be the government (or their appointed agency), universities, professional bodies, employers, the teachers who teach the stuff?
I would suggest that the answer you’d give to these questions would to a great extent depend on your ideologies. Debating these are often pointless – no-one is likely to shift their position in a hurry. So the UK government says that A-levels are no longer up to the job of preparing students for university. But who says that this should be the job of the A-level? Ideology. Is grade inflation acceptable? Ideology again. Universities should drive school exams? More ideology.
Anyone who wades into this mire is going to have to expect trouble on many sides, and it’s no surprise the Education Secretary is getting it. A bit more open discussion might be a better approach, though I doubt this would change the general principle of "if you talk about school exams in any way, no matter what position you take, expect to greatly offend around 50% of your listeners".
Hmmm, can’t resist having a go at answering your questions
1. Should universities be there for the ‘elite’, or should they be open to all? And who should pay for them?
As I teach at a polytechnic I’m going to widen this to commenting on the tertiary sector in general
Tertiary institutions are there for those who are capable of completing the courses and programmes they offer. In this respect then senior exams at school could/should serve as a way of determining the likelihood of a student being able to succeed at university
2. Is the purpose of an exam at the age of 18 to prepare a student for university, or is it to prepare him or her for the workplace, or for life, or what?
Rather than focus on the exams at 18, I think it is more important to focus on the course content at school. Does this mesh well with courses students might do at tertiary level? is there also a way of making sure course content & skills can prepare students for other career options?
If the course content & skills is right, then exams will simply test the students capability in the content/skills.
3. Should exams identify the performance of students relative to their cohort, or should they identify the absolute performance of the students (i.e. would it be acceptable for every student in an exam to get a grade ‘A’ if they all were good students)? Are ‘grades’ the way to go anyway?
This is one of the major challenges with exams. “Absolute” performance through scaling is flawed, even if it would be useful. It makes much more sense for me for greater effort to be invested in trying to keep exams consistent in terms of difficulty from year to year.
with regards to grades, I would much prefer a % score in each subject, but I could be biased as this was the system used when I was at school.
4. Who should have control of the examination process? Should it be the government (or their appointed agency), universities, professional bodies, employers, the teachers who teach the stuff?
I think a joint effort would ensure the best outcomes. Hand it over to the universities and it would become university-centric which would ignore the fact that not all students go to university. Teachers may make it too student orientated, continuing the disconnect between school and the tertiary sector.
The government would no doubt have to play a part but hopefully with sage advice from other groups a good system would emerge.