Voice comments on GCSE results

25 August 2011

Senior Professional Officer (Education) Ian Toone said: "We should praise all the young people, and their teachers, who have reaped the benefits of their hard work and dedication over the past two years.

"Congratulations are also due to the many mature students who have returned to study, often juggling attendance at college or learning at home with their many other responsibilities, in order to further their own personal development and improve their employment prospects and life chances.

"An alarming feature of this year’s results is the widening gender gap, with girls outperforming boys at grades A*-A – the widest this gender gap has been since the A* grade was introduced in 1994. This is contrary to the trend shown in this year’s A level results and may be partly due to the current unitised nature of GCSEs [where examinations are sat progressively in bite-sized units throughout the course with students having the opportunity to resit modules] as research has shown that girls fair better in courses that require continuous dedication, whereas boys are more likely to have a last minute burst of effort."

"The fact that the number of awards at A*-C has increased by only 0.8% this year, and in the proportion of top grades at A* and A is up by 0.6%, does not support the panic that GCSEs are becoming easier and need to be tightened up and made more rigorous.

"What really frustrates teachers is the repeated interference from government ministers, resulting in constant flux and moving goalposts. Education is not a game of football – it’s a preparation for life. In spite of promises made by government that autonomy is being handed back to teachers and schools, there is still an appetite among Ministers to control everything rigidly from the centre.

"Rather than continuing to interfere with a stable examinations system, which is widely respected and regarded throughout the world, the Government should heed its own calls to put power back into the hands of the people who are the experts in this – the teachers, awarding bodies and other education professionals.

"Most of this year’s students would have chosen their GCSE options long before Michael Gove introduced the ‘English Baccalaureate’ (EBacc) as a performance measure, which just goes to show how misleading performance league tables can be, especially when odd measures are introduced on an ad hoc basis at the whim of ministers.

"By choosing to emphasise the importance of that which is easily measured, the Government seems to have lost its way. The increasing obsession with tests, tables and targets risks forcing teachers to ‘teach to the test’ rather than provide pupils with a rounded education.

"In order for education to be a preparation for life (including working life), pupils need a range of skills, some of which – such as self-confidence, initiative, flexibility, emotional intelligence, communication skills and problem-solving ability – are difficult to assess on a formal basis."

Article Comments

---

Press releases, papers and documents published on this page are the intellectual property of an organisation unrelated to Central Lobby. We promote their parliamentary and political campaigning activities as they are subscribers to the Central Lobby service.

As such, Central Lobby does not edit, endorse, or attempt to balance the opinions expressed on this page. The content of press releases and other such types of content are the responsibility of the originating organisation.