Oct 24 2007
Death of the A level?
A Prime Minister who sold so much of our gold at such a low price might well think abolishing the gold standard of our educational system, the A level, is a suitable encore. The government is right to realise they have a major problem in the way they examine young people, but it is one which needs careful change lest they make it worse.
The first point to grasp is there are too many external exams. These are also given too much prominence, as schools are assessed and ranked on the basis of the results they achieve. There are external tests at 7, 11, 14, 16, 17 and 18. It would simplify life - and create more time within each child’s school career for a wider education - if we got rid of the 7,14 and 17 year old external tests.
There is a case for having an 11 year old test so the secondary school knows more about the achieivement of the pupils it receives from primaries, and so we know what the result of 6 years of primary education has been. It would also enable us to target remedial work in the summer vacation for those who have not reached a satisfactory level in the basics prior to attending a secondary school.
The case for having a 16 year old test is based on 16 still being the school leaving age. Even under this government’s proposals to effectively raise the school leaving age to 18, it should still be a decision point where many might opt for vocational training at an FE College or opt to attend a Sixth Form College for a more academic course. This justifies a serious external exam.
The 18 year old exam should be a higher level test of knowledge and skill, worth having in its own right for those who wish to go into work and academically challenging enough so that it demonstrates a good foundation for degree level study at a University.
I see no need for an external exam at 17, removing the 17 year old’s summer term from serious study as it will be occupied by revision and exams, nor for external exams at 7 and 14. Of course schools will use internal tests on a regular basis to ensure children are mastering material and are ready to move on to the next stage.
The presence of so many exams, and the fixation of schools with the league tables, conspire to produce a culture where students concentrate on learning just those things they need to pass the exam. There is a utilitarian approach to knowledge - do I need to know this to pass, and for how long do I need to remember it? More teaching time is taken up with explaining exam technique, marking patterns and the like, and less on the wider ramifications of the subject.
I have just put myself through a modern professional qualification in Investment Management to see what this system is like. It was a Level 3 course, covering Economics, Statistics, Accountancy, Taxation, Investment Theory, Investment Instruments and Regulation. Because they decided it has to be marked by computer, every question had to be reduced to a choice between four possible answers like an edition of the Millionaire quiz. I had to adjust to a world where there are always correct answers, and learn to guess how the examiners would judge an answer to be correct in areas of Economics where it is often a matter of opinion and argument. The Examiners rightly strove to ask questions where factual answers were possible in most cases, at the expense of a candidate being able to demonstrate an understanding of the uncertainties of investment markets and the limitations of the many quantified means of analysing and monitoring those markets. Successful candidates needed a good memory more than the ability to think about problems or to write persuasive opinions.
Doing this exercise enabled me to think myself into the mindset of so much modern education - how many facts did I need to learn to pass? Had I memorised how the examiners thought about these issues? Could I pass without reading anything other than the course materials supplied by the professional body? It is a different world from the world where candidates are asked to set out their views on a complex subject, marshalling evidence and engaging in a dialogue with the current state of opinion. There was no encouragement to read more widely, think of some new way of considering a question or to consider more than one possible approach.
To recover the gold standard of the A level, or whatever the government will want to call its new 18 year old exam, we need to recreate a sense of enquiry, and reward for the best candidates who go beyond the memorising and box ticking approach. The government is cutting the amount of course work in the system, which has only served to reinforce the utilitarian approach. That is a good idea. It now needs to make sure the final test allows the best students to distinguish themselves, and have a marking scheme sensitive enough to capture the very different levels of effort and achievement students reach at A level.
If they must create an A Star rather than limit the numbers gaining a grade A, then so be it. If they do, the A Star should require the candidate to go beyond the confines of the course. In an arts subject they should show they have read more widely than the set texts or text books, and demonstrate an ability to handle a wide range of complex material. A Star students should be ready to undertake degree level study in a top university with little supervision, knowing how to use a good library to pit their wits against the best brains of the past and to inform themselvs from the treasury of collected knowledge.
John Redwood has been the Member of Parliament for Wokingham since 1987. First attending Kent College, Canterbury, he graduated from Magdalen College...
Sorry John but I disagree with you on this. As a former teacher, the A-star grade at A-level is just papering over the cracks. The profit-making exam boards set the questions and make the syllabuses easier, and therefore have no incentive to increase the difficulty level for the students. Introducing the A-star will not stop grade inflation or force exam boards to make the exams harder.
We need to get the government out of education and get an independent board of experts (including university professors) to set the exam questions, decide on syllabus material and ensure that standards remain high. The government will never let exams get harder because they are so hell-bent on making it look like they’re doing a good job.
http://lettersfromatory.wordpress.com/2007/10/24/another-balls-up/
Reply: I would be happier to see more independence if there is a way of entrenching it. I agree that somehow more stretching questions and marking standards are needed to differentiate between the higher achievers.
I remember when doing my A levels that one of the lecturers told us that we must focus totally on the ‘Ability to argue’ as that was what examiners looked for and that even counted for more than content. So even though that was many years ago now it is still unsettling to think that students were marked up based on how frequently they used linguistic turnstiles. There was one instance of a girl I knew who got an A in political history yet when talking to this same girl post-exam I discovered that she believed the USSR had been on the side of the allies as far back as 1939! So clearly even back then it was possible to pass exams without a complete knowledge of the subject.
Our education system does seem to be in a sad state. I believe it started when we went towards comprehensive education.
The current government has completed the downfall of our once great education system with too much political interference. Too much micro management with distrust by government of the professionals involved. Gordon, stop interfering and let professionals get on with the job. Nanny does not always know best!!
The A levels were a great indication of ones ability, now they appear to be handed out like Reader’s Digest prize draw winner’s notifications.
I agree, test at eleven to see how the student has progressed and to give an indication to the secondary school of the student’s ability. It was called the eleven-plus in the glory days of our education system. Encourage people to think for themselves and to have an opinion and allow them to express that opinion. (Even about religious slaughter John!!)
Challenge the more academic students….We did that with grammar schools
Provide vocational courses….We did that with Technical schools.
Educate less able students with a mixture of vocational and basic literacy and innumeracy courses….We did that with Secondary Modern schools.
Errmmm Seems like the answers to our current problems are in our past….That is the real past, not the politically correct new history that our government promotes in our schools where we in Great Britain are always in the wrong.
The concept of equality in all areas of our life and our society is killing our society. People are different in many ways….some brighter than others….some more creative than others….some more stronger than others…..We need to move away from the one size fits all mentality that has overtaken common sense in government policy on education….as well as many other areas!!
Reply: The reference to religious slaughter is a mild reproof to me for not posting a previous contribution. I will set out why I occasionally do not publish an item in a new posting shortly.
I think the ‘A’ level always has been flawed. They have always been too narrow. Full specialisation should start during undergraduate period. The issue of global warming illustrates the point; there are far too many people getting their oar in who do not understand the ’scientific’ method. If they did, I would not suggest they would become authoritative on the issue, just that they might approach topics on which they have scant knowledge or understanding, with a degree more circumspection and humility; they might also be able to start counting the non sequiturs in the arguments put forth, and to ask intelligent questions instead of simply trying to shout each other down.
Scientists should be able to express themselves well in one or more languages and humanities graduates would need to understand that some things are not matters of argument, but matters of fact and scientific logic or possibly indeterminate.
In principle, university entrance examinations are a matter for universities to set, but we also need to look at the examination systems (and therefore education systems) adopted by our competitors who are creating more patents than we are (not including the US which hoovers up others’ talent):-
http://www.wipo.int/ipstats/en/statistics/patents/patent_report_2007.html#P694_40454
An examination of the ‘Country of Origin’ chart will demonstrate that we are not only performing very poorly against equivalent countries, but are being put to shame by the relative performance of much smaller countries. This is also the key to the UK problem with ‘added value’. Patents are an investment in future prosperity and economic success.
I agree with your analysis of the exam system. I recently looked at some exam questions for A-level maths and physics, both of which I studied. It wasn’t that the material or syllabus was particularly dumbed down but rather that the questions were much simpler and more straightforward. It was very easy to ascertain you’d arrived at the correct answer as it came to a conveniently round number.
Multiple choice is always going to be more suited to our state-run exam factories although, it can be made trickier by deducting marks for wrong answers. This works very well in recruitment processes. However, I can’t imagine a schools minister announcing on the news that half of all pupils have attained negative marks.