When communism fell apart in the USSR there was panic in an unusual sector of the economy: the school examinations industry. What was to become of all those questions about Marxist-Leninist theory and the history of the communist party \u2014 hitherto core components of any exam process where success was needed in order to progress, particularly to elite universities. \u00a0Suddenly the core wasn\u2019t even banished to the edge but was well beyond it. You have to feel for the cadre of trusted party members once entrusted with that task.<\/p>\n
I thought of this as I read Edward Lucas's article in Monday's Times which called for the abandonment of the GCSE examinations; he said they are a form of child abuse fostered by the State. \u00a0What would teachers do, I mused in these circumstances? \u00a0What would they teach? \u00a0 \u00a0How would they hold attention?<\/p>\n
They'd be freed up of course to teach all those things that countless critics (including me) say are worthwhile. \u00a0What a daunting thought. \u00a0Oddly, though teacher unions want to banish SATS; none seem to be gunning for GCSE, counter-educational though it is.<\/p>\n
Lucas wrote:<\/p>\n
\"...\u00a0In practice, these exams seem to me to be a form of child abuse.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n One reason is that GCSEs are not really about the subjects themselves. \u00a0They are tests of technique. \u00a0You gain a good mark not because you know and love the topic, but because you have mastered the marking scheme and can regurgitate the right factoids in the correct order. \u00a0Extra knowledge is firmly discouraged ... Memorisation trumps understanding. ...<\/em><\/p>\n Questioning the textbooks is heresy. \u00a0The drive for topicality means that these authorised versions are often outdated; the physics book\u2019s treatment of renewable energy seems to have been written a decade ago. \u00a0The history books mix platitudes with lacunae. \u00a0Don\u2019t get me started on geography (dud economics laced with political correctness) or the tendentious, unstated relativism of the religious studies course. \u00a0Some subjects are suited for exams at this level. Others are not. \u00a0A friend\u2019s daughter boasts GCSEs in law and psychology.<\/em>\"<\/p>\n<\/div>\n He ended:<\/p>\n \"As my ire rises at this perverse, and uniquely British, arrangement, so too does a nagging sense of recognition. \u00a0I once worked in a country where the curriculum was designed to crush independent thinking. \u00a0Ideological orthodoxy was paramount. \u00a0Even a minor misstep could doom you to a constrained, tedious life. \u00a0Education, in short, was an arm of the state, beating malleable young people into shape. \u00a0But the rigid, ruthless, soul-destroying East German system was installed by Soviet occupation. We have done this to ourselves<\/em>.\"<\/p>\n All of us who want to see young people learning about the world they will inherit should be calling for the death of the GCSE. \u00a0Go on, I dare you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When communism fell apart in the USSR there was panic in an unusual sector of the economy: the school examinations industry. What was to become of all those questions about Marxist-Leninist theory and the history of the communist party \u2014...<\/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-7487","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\/7487","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=7487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7487\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}