It was recently announced that come 2015, the Conservative government will be abolishing GCSE's, returning us to the system that was in use back in the 80's. Namely, everyone at age 16 must take a single, terminal, examination at the end of their two year course, the result of which determines whether they pass or fail. No modules. No resits.
Somehow, this isn't coming across to me as a good idea.
A quick history lesson. Pre-1988, we had a tiered system for examinations and qualifications. More academically inclined students took O-levels, while everyone else took CSE's (Certificate of Secondary Education). The highest grade attainable on a CSE was supposed to be equivalent to a C at O-level. The problem was, it sort of....wasn't. Employers tended to favour those who had O-levels to those who took CSE's. Essentially, the system was rather biased toward very academic students, with those students more inclined to take vocational courses getting the raw deal.
That was the first half of the problem. The second half was that both O-levels and CSE grades were decided on the results of a single terminal examination at the end of the two years. The problems with that are glaringly obvious, how many times have you guys felt you've messed up on an exam? And then consider the fact that you can't be tested on every aspect of the course within just one paper. Our generation takes for granted that we know exactly what we have to revise to get the grades, our parents didn't have that luxury. They had to revise EVERYTHING and hope that they got lucky with whatever was on that single paper!
GCSE's were introduced in 1988 by the Conservatives to try and combat this. The idea was that the divisive tired system and terminal examinations were to be replaced with a modular system which offered a full range of grades (A-G), and which also offered vocational courses for less academic students which focused more on practical skills and employability.
Fast forward 25 years, and the Tories are complaining again. (There's no pleasing some people!) Essentially, the introduction of the modular system made teaching the course material a hell of a lot easier, and also gave a much clearer picture of what was going to be on the exam papers. This naturally led to a steadily increasing pass rate over the years. This should start to sound familiar to you guys, we end up with a system where A's and A*'s are the norm, and students are taught simply to "pass exams". The Tories tend to argue that this is a problem with the GCSE system, and they may be right. But is returning to the original, inherently flawed, system going to solve these problems, or just resurrect the problems we had back in the 80's?
I'm thinking the latter. To be honest, a return to the "Good Old Days" of the academic elite and grammar schools is probably what they want. Blergh.
What do you guys think?
Jake
I don't mind having just a terminal exam, but not having resits I disagree with (not because I'm relying on them! =P) People have no idea what might be going on in someone's life outside of school that could unfairly effect their grade. Or you might just stuff up on the day of the exam. These things wouldn't reflect the candidate's actual ability. Just because someone is fortunate enough to have no distractions and a perfect life outside of school doesn't mean they're better at a subject than someone who's dealing with 50 other things and trying to manage it all =P
ReplyDeleteThe other thing is that people are given their grades based on percentages. Why do the top 20% get As, for example? Being better or worse than a certain amount of other people doesn't actually show your ability in a subject, it just shows how well you did compared to others. It would make more sense to have a mark boundary, and if you pass that then you have at least this much competence in a subject. Why have grades at all? They're far too broad! Do a score system instead. And have a terminal exam which is repeated 3+ times that all people have to do, then the average or best score from that is taken.
Rant rant rant =P
Bloody Tories... always siding with the rich -_-
ReplyDeleteIts a load o' crap I think. As Matt said people could be having problems around the time and have their grades affected. Also there's the ranges of capability and learing speed. I know some people who didnt do well in GCSE but have flown through A-Level because they learn at different rates to other people, so 1 exam is stupid and unfair to anyone less than a genius.
(generic rant of how much i hate tories and how bad the national anthem is)
The best thing for them to do is to develop what's working. If they think the GCSEs need changing then maybe reduce the modules or something. Rant over =P
Agree with both of you. I'm not saying the current system is perfect, but if it has to change, changing it back to something which is very clearly worse isn't the best of ideas. :P
ReplyDeleteWe agree with you!
ReplyDeleteAlso the National Anthem is amazing.
.......... It's a droning dirge XD
ReplyDelete