It is hard to know which is the more disturbing \u2013 a politician ordering an exam board to raise candidates' GCSE grades, or the board meekly saying \"Yes sir, of course, sir. \u00a0Very happy to oblige.\" \u00a0The latter, probably. \u00a0Both have happened in Wales over the last week, and so far there have been no resignations.<\/p>\n
1020 students who took the WJEC's<\/a> English GCSE exam last summer in school exam centres in Wales have had their D grades converted to C; and 598 others have seen their C grade changed to a B. \u00a0According to the BBC<\/a>, a total of 2386 grades were changed (all upwards, of course), so maybe there were even B grades shifted to A. \u00a0Predictably, most teacher unions have applauded. \u00a0Meanwhile around 84,000 students who took the same exam in school exam centres in England will not have their grades uplifted, and that will include some students who live in Wales. \u00a0How a supposedly reputable exam board has gone along with this beggars belief. \u00a0Rationality suggests that there will be a flood of English schools withdrawing from the Board's jurisdiction. \u00a0Let's hope so.<\/p>\n All this becomes easier to understand (if not condone) when you realise that the exam regulator in Wales is the Welsh government, and that WJEC<\/a> is owned by the 22 (sic<\/em>) Welsh local authorities. \u00a0All very cosy, cosy.<\/p>\n Not all teacher unions have been pleased. \u00a0The Welsh teacher union (UCAC) said it was \"regrettable\" the qualifications system had become a political football. \u00a0Oddly, though, the BBC reported (at around 0800 today) much stronger condemnation from UCAC policy officer Rebecca Williams (something about the need to re-examine exam regulation in Wales, but I did not take notes), but by 0900 this had been withdrawn from the BBC site. \u00a0And when you look to the UCAC<\/a> site for a comment \u2013 nothing at all. \u00a0Looks as if the union has withdrawn inside the tent \u2013 pulled inside, more like.<\/p>\n No one gains by this, though maybe those deluded few who think that grade inflation equals a raising of standards will cheer. \u00a0And those who think that educational standards can be raised by changing exam systems (as Nick Clegg seems to) will secretly be pleased. \u00a0Sadly, none of it will help Welsh students do better in international tests, or fare better in the World.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It is hard to know which is the more disturbing \u2013 a politician ordering an exam board to raise candidates' GCSE grades, or the board meekly saying \"Yes sir, of course, sir. \u00a0Very happy to oblige.\" \u00a0The latter, probably. \u00a0Both...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-news-and-updates"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2372\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}