In researching this post I found several references to reviews of the UK examination system stretching as far back as 1996. With the report on the latest review of the examination process due soon, hopes are not high that those with the authority will be bold enough to implement the changes that have been widely identified but generally discounted with excuses and false information.
The plain and simple fact of examinations is that they provide a snapshot of what a student can remember from two years of study and, due to the constraints upon them, can test only a fraction of what a student has encountered over those two years. The outcome is a grade that allows the student, the school and employers to measure the student against their peers, selecting employees to a great extent, on grade ranking. It promotes competitiveness between students, forces teachers to coerce students into revising which generally means memorising information which, due to the nature of the average young person, means last minute cramming for the exams which are concentrated into a short period adding further stress to the students.
It’s no wonder that only in three other developed countries do students feel less happy with their lives than UK students with young people being happier than their UK counterparts in nearly seventy other countries.
We can all list examples of how the nature of the examination system has disadvantaged capable students: students who are ill on the day of an exam; those whose stress makes their mind go blank as soon as they turn over the paper; those who suffer from hay fever with the exams set in summer etc. etc.
So why does each review achieve only very minor tinkering of the system? The simple answer is that success is a measure and to find a score to rank, a test has to be set that is standardised and free from bias. The blinkered view is that this can only be achieved with a written examination, taken by all students at the same time but with the fear of failure outweighing hopes of success. Surely a measure taken over a longer period which would iron out any issues of readiness on the day of the assessment and would show development over time, greater understanding of the material, the use of skills as well as the acquisition of knowledge, would be far more valuable but the misguided lack of trust of teachers as professionals keeps this more appropriate and valuable model at arm’s length. But if this is the case, why is the combination of formative and summative assessment in the IB acceptable? Why do the examination boards that set exams, trust the teachers in the far more valuable extended project qualification?
It’s probably not the trust element that is stalling change but the massive task that would be involved. The EPQ is a small piece in the huge jigsaw of assessments, IB has developed and grown over the decades along the path that teachers would prefer to use for assessment. Dismantling the GCSE/IGCSE, GCE/IAL behemoth would be a gargantuan and expensive task that examination boards and maybe that’s the reason why no one is prepared to take a deep breath and echo what teachers and academics have known for decades, ‘The examination system is not fit for purpose!’
How much longer must we wait before we can be assured of an assessment model that doesn’t simply require the regurgitation of information, churning out young people who struggle to make a more effective contribution to the economy?
