Thursday 23 July 2009

The SATs failure and government interference.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/5888177/Government-micro-management-damaging-exams-system.html

For many years secondary teachers have questioned the reliability of the primary SATs results, given that the level achieved by youngsters with poor literacy skills seemed at odds with the skills we inherited. Micro-management of the government across the examination system has now been confirmed by the Parliamentary select committe. Once, it was the academics who ran and administered the examinations system, now it is private companies at the behest of Whitehall. Did such a change take place because the independence of the academics may lead to them being less pliant in the great window dressing scam that pretends standards are rising?

2 comments:

  1. I suspect that it was more that the euducation "academics" were so far left that even Labour ministers and their pinko civil servants couldn't stomach them.

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  2. Interesting point, david. However, examinations from JMB were so much more academic and challenging than the sad excuse for examinations now which has led experts to say that, for example, the science GCSE paper can be passed without any knowledge of science! The internatonal GCSE, still based largely on the old system, is also much better in terms of knowledge and reliance on technical ability.

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