[dancinglove]

Wow. According to this report Year Nines (like me) will be the last to sit GCSEs.

Return of the O-Level: Gove plans to scrap dumbed-down GCSEs and National Curriculum in the biggest revolution in education for 30 years
Under Gove's plan, class of 2013 will be last to sit GCSEs
New exams will be toughest in the world
Top secret plans revealed in leaked documents seen by the Mail
Gove set for collision course with teaching unions, local authorities and Lib Dems

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...#ixzz1yPFInfyG

It will mark the end for different exam boards with one board serving all students. What do you think. Most of you have experienced the system?

Discuss.

[py0alb]

Single exam board good. Tough exams good. Split at age 14 terrible.

[Lorem Ipsum]

I think this is a good thing but I'm glad I've been spared the bullet, finishing my GCSEs last year. I feel sorry for my cousin who is in year 8 though.

[Silent--ly]

I don't understand how creating a single exam board would work practically. There are currently ~5 different exam boards, more if you count branches such as OCR and OCR (MEI) separately. Each exam board employs so many people; regulators, examiners, markers, assessors, office staff, and surely any attempt to merge them would result in hundreds, if not thousands of job losses. I just don't understand how this is feasible / justifiable.

[iamcharliewalsh]

"Urgh, in my days exams were so much harder..."

Does this mean our parents won't have any excuses when we do better in our exams than they did?

[HighestKungFu]

That's one small step for man, one giant leap for elitism.

[Beebumble]

So everything doesn't need to be 'shaken up' is being shaken up. Everything that does need a shake up is being left alone.

[YMLT]

Terrible idea.

I did GCSEs last year. They're tough as it is. If Gove thinks exams are being 'dumb[ed]' then maybe he should sit them himself? I bet he wouldn't get an A* in additional Science, or an A in Geography, or whatever.

If anything, he needs to introduce more modular exams & more coursework, or at least the option of more coursework.

[15nico360]

Looks like I'm dodging a major bullet

[Silent--ly]

From 2014, the bottom 25 per cent of pupils will study more straightforward exams in English, maths and science, so they can get a worthwhile qualification.

Mr Gove is misguided if he seriously thinks that this would help less able students. There are already furious debates about how BTECs aren't equivalent to GCSEs or A-Levels, as well as the classic "Is a 2:2 from Oxbridge equivalent to a 1st or 2:1 from a lesser university?" By introducing a new O-Level / CSE system, surely we're just replacing the old system with almost exactly the same thing?

Several years from now people will be debating on TSR whether its better to get a C at O-Level, or an A* at CSE

[py0alb]

(Original post by Silent--ly)
I don't understand how creating a single exam board would work practically. There are currently ~5 different exam boards, more if you count branches such as OCR and OCR (MEI) separately. Each exam board employs so many people; regulators, examiners, markers, assessors, office staff, and surely any attempt to merge them would result in hundreds, if not thousands of job losses. I just don't understand how this is feasible / justifiable.

So less resources are used to achieve the same results.

What you're saying is that increasing efficiency in the economy is a bad thing?

[py0alb]

How will we be able to distinguish a CSE pupil from a full UK citizen? Do you think a system of tattooing/branding/headshaving would be appropriate?

[Silent--ly]

(Original post by py0alb)
So less resources are used to achieve the same results.

What you're saying is that increasing efficiency in the economy is a bad thing?

You're saying thousands of people unemployed is a good thing?

It wouldn't necessarily increase efficiency either. If there was only one exam board, it wouldn't have any competitors. Therefore there would be no motivation to improve standards or efficiency for the benefit of candidates.

[tomatoslayer]

the future is most definitely phucked now...

[py0alb]

(Original post by Silent--ly)
You're saying thousands of people unemployed is a good thing?

It wouldn't necessarily increase efficiency either. If there was only one exam board, it wouldn't have any competitors. Therefore there would be no motivation to improve standards or efficiency for the benefit of candidates.

Frictional unemployment such as this is a short term, small scale problem. Institutionalised inefficiency is not, it lowers the living standard of everyone in the UK.

Of course it increases efficiency. Less people needed to do the same job = increase in efficiency.

Competition doesn't always lead to superior performance. Think about it: in the case of exam boards, the competition is for schools to adopt their syllabus.

What do schools want? Easy exams so they can get good grades. So the exam boards "compete" with each other as to who can produce the easiest possible exam papers they can get away with. Many exam boards have gone as far as to secretly tip off schools the exact contents of the exam in advance in return for extending contracts.

And you think this "competition" is a good thing?

[WTFCBA]

surely any attempt to merge them would result in hundreds, if not thousands of job losses.

Sorry but Tories caring about job losses??

[Electronica]

(Original post by Silent--ly)
You're saying thousands of people unemployed is a good thing?

It wouldn't necessarily increase efficiency either. If there was only one exam board, it wouldn't have any competitors. Therefore there would be no motivation to improve standards or efficiency for the benefit of candidates.

Works in Scotland...

Well, until they turn our curriculum inside-out too.

[py0alb]

(Original post by Silent--ly)
Mr Gove is misguided if he seriously thinks that this would help less able students.

There is very little point in a pupil who struggles to write coherent sentences being forced to study long poetry anthologies and study algebra though, is there? Better to get him to the point where he can compose a cover letter for a job advertisement without coming across like a moron, and add up his phone bill correctly, no?

[Good bloke]

(Original post by iamcharliewalsh)
Does this mean our parents won't have any excuses when we do better in our exams than they did?

If the examiners do their job properly those taking these exams won't be doing better than your parents. What is needed is a good spread of results from the top to the bottom of the grade structure, the likelihood of failing if you aren't able or don't work and no artificial boost to results from the use of modules and re-sits. Then we'll have an exam system that differentiates (as it should) rather than one which just awards.

[concubine]

**** the haters.

I support this, and the proposed changes to A levels.