Secondary Education (GCSEs)

Baroness Primarolo Excerpts

Tuesday 26th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

As all Members can see, many of them wish to take part in the debate. We will not be able to fit everyone in without a time limit, so all Back-Bench contributions will be limited to seven minutes. If interventions slow us down even further, it may be necessary to shorten that limit.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Lewis]

I am very grateful to the Chairman of the Education Committee for giving me the opportunity to ask the question that I was hoping to ask of the Secretary of State. Given that both sides now seem to accept that there has been a problem of grade inflation, could we pay a little bit of attention to the marks that underlie the grades? One of the problems that I felt many years ago with the introduction of grades for O-levels, rather than marks, was that it did not matter if somebody got 70%, 80% or 90%: anybody who reached a certain level—70%, I think—still got the same top grade. This was the beginning of an inflationary process. Would not the stating of actual marks—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Thank you. That is quite enough. That is a very long intervention in a very short debate.

[Mr Stuart]

Fortunately, my hon. Friend takes me to the issue I wanted to address next, which is the administration of examinations. Unfortunately, however, I am unable to comment on that now. The Education Committee has conducted a long inquiry into precisely that issue, looking at the trade-offs between a single board, competition between boards, franchising by subject and various other ways of cutting it. We have concluded our report, but because of the examination season—whoever leaked this story to the press last week was obviously less sensitive than us to the fact that children were taking exams—we decided to delay the publication of our report until 3 July. So, I am afraid that, until then, I cannot engage in that issue. However, we have looked at it in depth, and I hope I am not in contempt of Parliament if I say that the Committee came up with a unanimous recommendation and report. I hope that those on both sides of the House will wait until at least 3 July before allowing any of their opinions to solidify further.

If the Secretary of State is talking about a more rigorous GCSE system—whether it is given a new name or not—which is effectively a single examination system, as we have now, that would rather destroy the entire premise of my speech, leaving me short for words.