GCSE English (Marking)

Elizabeth Truss Excerpts

Tuesday 18th September 2012 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Elizabeth Truss)]

I thank the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) for securing today’s debate. I recognise that he has a lot of expertise in the sector. He taught English at Greatfield high school, and is a former principal of a further education college, so I respect the knowledge that he has brought to today’s debate.

I want to restate what the Secretary of State has already made clear. I have great sympathy for all those students who did not receive the grades they were expecting in this summer’s GCSE English results. There is a process whereby hon. Members can register their concerns with Ofqual, which is rightly dealing with queries. If schools or students are concerned, I suggest that they raise those concerns with Ofqual as soon as possible.

The hon. Gentleman asks me to set out what action the Government are taking, and what action I believe they should take. It will come as no surprise to him that, as the Secretary of State made clear at the Select Committee earlier this week, it would be totally wrong for the Government to intervene in marking or grading decisions. That is Ofqual’s responsibility, and as other hon. Members have said, Ofqual was set up by the previous Secretary of State to oversee and maintain standards and qualifications. Grade boundaries and maintaining standards is a matter for Ofqual, which is directly accountable to Parliament. It is important that where there are independent regulators, they should conduct investigations and answer queries—in this case, that process is still ongoing—without undue political interference.

Ofqual published its initial report into the concerns about GCSE English, finding that the June grade boundaries were properly set and that candidates’ work was properly graded. It has also said that the January grade boundaries were set generously. The hon. Gentleman has referred to Glenys Stacey’s comments on that matter.

[Nic Dakin]

First, does the Secretary of State have a role in ensuring the competence of the regulator? Secondly, Ofqual has not looked at any work; it is a mere statistical sample of 75%. It is not even a technical analysis of 100%, according to the report, which is signally flawed. Does the Minister accept that point?

[Elizabeth Truss]

On the hon. Gentleman’s first point, our exam system is undergoing reform. I shall comment later on the modular system and the impact that that had on grading decisions.

Ofqual is looking at the details of individual students and why they got the expected results, while others did not. That is why I am encouraging hon. Members to send concerns to Ofqual, which will produce its final report in October. It is the right body to investigate the matter, rather than the Department for Education, because otherwise we end up in a system where politicians interfere with the grading review. The hon. Gentleman alluded to Wales, and that is a problem with the approach being taken there.

The hon. Gentleman also mentioned problems with the current system, presenting a rosy description of GCSEs in the years since their introduction. Although he spoke about O-levels, I am not able to remember sitting such exams, because I took GCSEs. Therefore, I sadly do not have his wealth of knowledge about different qualifications going back through history. The specific problem with English GCSE was the modular examination system, which we are changing. A lot of convoluted technical processes were created that made it more difficult to moderate and mark the exams. The Government and the Secretary of State have been clear about wanting to move away from a modular system to one in which students study subjects in depth, and where what students have learnt can be assessed at the end of the course. We think that modular exams and re-sitting exams get in the way of sound subject knowledge and sound subject teaching.

We believe that modular examinations were a factor in what happened with the English GCSE exams, but that is a matter for Ofqual to investigate. As I have said, the report is expected at the end of October. It will be up to Parliament to examine the findings, as Ofqual is ultimately accountable to Parliament, which returns to the question that the hon. Gentleman asked about what the Secretary of State’s role should be.

We are restoring the end-of-course exams for students starting GCSE courses this September. Yesterday, the Secretary of State announced the new English baccalaureate certificates that will be introduced in the core subjects. They will be linear and results will be given at the end of the course. I understand that that does not answer the specific question of what happened with students this summer, but again, that is being investigated by Ofqual. The proper role of politicians is to consider how the system can be reformed to work properly, rather than intervening in specific decisions that it is right for the regulator to make.

On the hon. Gentleman’s rosy perception of the past few years, there is widespread, bipartisan agreement that the level of grade inflation cannot be justified. He also had warm words for the examining bodies, even though they have been criticised for the role that they played in that inflation. I do not think, therefore, that they can be entirely part of the solution—in other words, we need to consider different approaches to GCSE exams.

Since 2000, England’s performance in international reading, mathematics and science tests have flatlined. Andreas Schleicher from the OECD has described the UK as stagnating over that period. The specific comments about the English results cannot hide the fact that under the previous Government we did not see the increase in standards that was seen in comparable countries. In 2000, the UK was ranked 12 places ahead of Germany in mathematics, but by 2009, it was 12 places behind. In 2000, the UK was 16 places above Germany in science, but it is now three places below. In reading, it was 14 places above Germany, but it is now five below. We cannot ignore international evidence showing that what was being reported as happening as a result of our exam system was not accurate, compared with fast-improving jurisdictions across the world.

[Nic Dakin]

I say gently to the Minister that those points are for another debate. We should focus on the hundreds of thousands of young people who have been negatively affected by something that, as the general secretary of ASCL said, has gone seriously and significantly wrong. Such people do not say things like that glibly. Something is wrong here and it is in an area that the Government, if they had intestinal fortitude, would do something about.

[Elizabeth Truss]

The reason it has gone wrong is because of the system we inherited, which was based on modular examinations. While we saw grade inflation in the UK, we were being overtaken by other countries.

[Mr Denham]

I urge the Minister to consider this point: the students do not care about the wider debate on examination standards. Something has gone wrong in the assessment of the English language examination this year. It has nothing to do with the debate about wider standards or how things are run, and it is frankly insulting—I must say that to the Minister, who is new in the job—to talk about other issues when students are wondering what will happen to them.

[Elizabeth Truss]

It is relevant, because the modular English exam was introduced by and the system was set up under the previous Government. The former Secretary of State was clear when he established Ofqual that it was an independent regulator of standards. It is not right, therefore, for Ministers or the Secretary of State to interfere with the marking process. Ofqual must conduct that investigation and the proper process is for schools and individuals, with the encouragement of MPs who feel that the treatment has not been fair in their constituencies, to apply directly to Ofqual. I have made that point clear, but there is no doubt that the long-term problems in our system have created incentives for schools and exam boards to behave in particular ways, and those issues need to be sorted out. That is the point behind the introduction of the English baccalaureate certificates. The race to the bottom between exam boards needs to end, so that we have a system that accurately reflects standards. At the moment, it does not.

I am extremely sympathetic to students who did not get the results that they expected. However, the proper course of action is through Ofqual, which is conducting the investigation, and the proper role of politicians is to reform the exam system so that we deal with issues such as modularisation, which caused these problems.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

We now move to the next debate. I would be obliged if the Parliamentary Private Secretary would remain in his seat so that we can carry on with the debate in the Minister’s absence.