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... be why I got an E instead of an A" The British education system at one time was considered as one of the world's finest, admired and emulated by nations spanning several continents. Now it is in a state of disarray, reduced to nothing less than a complete shambles and plagued with corruption thanks to the implementation of the so-called Curriculum 2000. "Luck of the draw" is becoming an increasingly influential factor in today's exam lottery. This article's title draws on the sarcasm of a Warwick undergraduate contributing to the A Level newsgroup. Having been fortunate enough to take his A Levels back in the good old days when Edexcel was a reputable name, he was sceptical about the validity of students' current grievances. But the present state of the exam system means that come results day, such seemingly bizarre statements could be taken seriously.
In all fairness, Edexcel were made the scapegoats [or "escape goats" as Jade from Big Brother would say] after a minor error by their printing company for a Maths paper resulted in disastrous consequences back in January. The media blitz that followed had everyone jumping on the bandwagon, venting all their fury at the exam board. Following the Yarm School head teacher's reporting of the unanswerable Maths question to the Beeb, suddenly allegations against poor old Edexcel reached new heights as they were blamed for more farcical errors. But with a sudden exponential increase in exam papers, these mistakes were inevitable. In fact such cock-ups had begun the previous summer, when in a much less publicised event, Question 1 in an AQA Physics A Level paper was impossible as it lacked essential data. From personal experience AQA's shoddy marking and virtually non-existent customer service means they deserve as much if not more criticism than Edexcel, with over 1 in 3 teachers finding AQA's marking quality unsatisfactory last year for some subjects.
However, neither is at fault as much as the government, recklessly implementing these changes so that 24 million scripts had to be marked when teacher shortages. are clear. So why has Curriculum 2000 resulted in the introduction of these primary-school errors? Maybe because the endless module combinations and numerous resit opportunities have meant exam boards cannot sufficiently check through each and every one of the hundreds of different exam papers. AQA's report for January's A Level Literature paper casually mentioned how some of the options set had not been attempted by any candidates. Last summer many papers costing thousands of pounds to produce were sat by only two or three students.
The inconsistent success rates between different exam boards should certainly be a cause for concern. Take last summer's AS Level results for example - over 40 % of OCR Maths students achieved an A in the M 1 module compared to 23 % of Edexcel's. This is not due to the brightest taking OCR - in fact many of London's finest take Edexcel; so a student who could manage an A with them may only scrape a C with Edexcel. What is even more alarming is that the same is true of vagaries between different syllabi within the same exam board - the system could easily be made more efficient and fairer by pruning these needless papers. The difference between a syllabus with 40 % coursework and one with nil for the same subject can be the difference of a couple of grades, potentially costing a university place. Whilst I was irate at having to take a 0 % coursework syllabus for A Level Literature, I met someone from "down South" taking an alternative syllabus, gleefully boasting of how her teacher had kept returning her coursework until it had reached Grade A standard.
Whilst measures have been taken in the last decade to drastically reduce the number of exam boards to just three main ones, this is still two too many. As Michael Liebreich said in a petition against Edexcel, "Having multiple exam boards is a recipe for grade inflation as schools seek easier boards. " A single exam board, controlled by the government as opposed to independent "non profit organisations" who battle it out to lure the most colleges, would significantly reduce the gross inconsistencies that have been greatly evident. This is currently being campaigned for online by CONE [Campaign for One National Exam Board], but this great effort will probably be completely futile thanks to a stubborn government who refuse to listen to us "young people" - emailing the Education department simply results in an automated response with Estelle Morris praising AS Levels. The QCA seem to be failing to ensure that exam standards remain consistent - the June paper for Edexcel's P 1 Maths was unanimously considered as far too demanding; at BBC's AS Guru the very best students were doubtful about if they had achieved 50 %, even though the equivalent January paper was "sooo much easier", as a student proclaimed on the message board. With such fiascos and controversies continuing to abound, students taking action was inevitable. Cue Edexcel, a website designed by disgruntled student Jonathan Higgs after his Grade D for compositions in Edexcel Music was re-marked as a Grade B, months after he had applied to universities.
But feedback from visitors of this site has seen even more startling cases, with students claiming that they were forced to resit exams after Edexcel lost their papers, and Melissa Johnson claiming that her E at AS was re-marked as an A months later, potentially costing her a prestigious Cambridge place. Teachers and university admissions tutors in the A Level newsgroup were startled that such incidents were taking place. Stories of Grade Es being re-marked as As are numerous and several boards have been the culprits; Welsh student Sian Warrior dropped AQA History after receiving an E, upgraded to an A months later, and in one case a Grade C was upgraded to 100 %. In some cases these unbelievable incidents are due to administrative errors, sometimes thanks to blatant examiner incompetency but usually they are in fact a result of insufficient and over-generalised mark schemes that leave examiners stumped and frustrated. A Level examiner Chris Stubbings quite worryingly says that moderation, an essential part of the marking process, is often "virtually non-existent", often done by teachers when at school, where their concentration is limited. An example of how luck can carry more weight than effort is when it comes to exam timetabling - when literally thousands of papers are scheduled to be sat in a few weeks, unreasonable demands are frequent.
The AS was introduced to promote diversity, but often those who did take a mix of art and science subjects as the government desired suffered the most, for example having to sustain nine hours of exams in a single day. A Level students at college one day had their History, Maths and Literature papers [all AQA] running at the same time. Regardless of how able a student is and / or how much effort they have put in, few if any can work to their full potential under such conditions - no wonder a student reportedly had a mental breakdown during a day of five exams. Why the Key Skills shambles still exists is beyond me. For the guinea pigs in my year, people worked for these qualifications only to hear months later that they are regarded as worthless not only by the best but by virtually all universities, and unknown to most employers. Hopefully my A in GCSE IT, a website that gets over 700 hits daily and IT based employment for various clients won't be neutralised by the fact that I failed the Key Skills IT paper.
Today's newspapers were blitzed with reports of how the expected pass rate rise for the 19 th consecutive time this Thursday, meaning that the 'A levels are getting easier' argument will once again initiate. Well even if the exams are in fact getting easier, this is greatly counterbalanced by the issues I have raised - five exams in a day, shambolic marking standards, the absence of moderation, the glaring inconsistencies... the list goes on. Edexcel at present boast about their new costly " 21 st century" certificates that conveniently cannot be photocopied. But more to the point, will the validity of the grades be worth the paper they will be printed on? Well, we will see come Thursday whether their Operations and Assessment Director Jerry Jarvis was correct in assuring the Edexcel webmaster that the mistakes of the last year "cannot possibly be repeated."..
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