Examination Reform

Pat Glass Excerpts

Wednesday 16th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)]

The Education Select Committee, of which I am a member, has held detailed discussions with the Secretary of State, with curriculum and assessment experts and with others in the field, including representatives of universities, other learned bodies and employers, on the Government’s proposals to change examinations at 16. I know that many Members want to express their concern that the proposed Ebacc will restrict and limit qualifications, particularly in religious education, music, information technology and art. I have spoken about that many times in the House, and I do not propose to focus on it again today, but I want to repeat that subjects such as RE and music have a huge role to play in underpinning other vital subjects—philosophy, ethics, mathematics, even medicine—in later and higher learning. I find it strange to hear the Minister say that he is not downgrading these subjects. How can some subjects not be downgraded if other subjects are being upgraded? That simply does not make sense.

As I understand it, the Secretary of State proposes to introduce the EBacc qualification as a replacement or as a higher-value qualification for GCSEs in 2017. Perhaps he will clarify that for me in his summing-up speech. He proposes to change the way all examinations are administered, yet we saw the chaos created in the system in 2012, when the administration of just one subject—English language—was changed. At the same time, the Secretary of State proposes to franchise examinations and to open them up to wider competition. Although there are, in my view, dangers in each of those proposals, collectively the impact will be a recipe for chaos and disaster in the system. That is why I want to ask about the cumulative impact of all these changes.

What is so important about GCSEs is that they are examinations for all pupils of all abilities. They were initially introduced by a Conservative Government in 1988 in response to huge unhappiness, largely among parents, many of whom were middle class and whose children had been pushed down the CSE route. The Secretary of State at the time built a huge consensus around GCSEs. There was cross-party support for their introduction in this House, supported by teachers, head teachers, universities and learned bodies, parents and employers. I fail to see any such consensus on the introduction of a replacement for GCSEs. My understanding is that many of the people in the groups I mentioned have not been spoken to at all and that the independent body, Ofqual, has expressed real concerns about this change. The Secretary of State told us in the Education Committee that he intended to talk to the winner of the Turner prize—so that should help.

Will the Secretary of State clarify whether he intends to introduce this new examination in 2017 as a replacement for GCSEs or to create a two-tier system with GCSEs as the lower qualification? There is a lack of clarity about that.

The evidence presented to the Education Committee has demonstrated that while reform of GCSEs is required—indeed, periodic reform of any qualification is required—the brand is not broken and that it is the Secretary of State himself through his language and actions who is intentionally trying to damage the brand beyond repair for his own ends. Everyone who has spoken to him—and I mean everyone—has said that GCSEs deliver what we ask them to do, and that issues such as modularity versus linear or grade creep can be repaired, changed and improved within the GCSE brand.

Let me move on to the way in which we deliver examinations. We on the Select Committee have looked at that, too, and we agree that there is a conflict of interest where examination boards are both designing the syllabus and setting the examinations. We saw the remedy in separating that out, without necessarily opening the whole thing up to competition. The Secretary of State has told us about his plan to move towards “relationships” rather than contracts as a way of getting round EU contract law. Good luck with that! I do not think that will fool anybody, least of all the courts. My worry is that the current expertise in Guildford, Oxford and Cambridge will exist in future years in multinational companies in New York, Berlin and Frankfurt, without any involvement of our universities and learned bodies. We look as if we are doing for examinations what has been done in rail and energy, which has not exactly been a huge success. I ask the Secretary of State to think carefully about that.

Each of these proposed reforms has dangers, but I am mostly concerned about the cumulative impact of doing all this at the same time. One insider in the system recently told me confidentially, “When the blood bath happens, I expect this Secretary of State will be long gone.”

Important though they are, we are not talking about trains, electricity lines or reservoirs; we are talking about our children and their futures. There is real danger in what the Government are proposing—in the timing but, most importantly of all, in the cumulative impact of these proposals. I ask the Secretary of State to think again about them, especially about the aim to deliver everything at the same time. The risks are huge and the potential for chaos is massive.