These ‘reforms’ have failed to tackle fundamental flaws

The danger signs were there for all to see when some genius decided to make 1 the lowest and 9 the highest mark in the new GCSE grading system. But it’s gone from bad to worse.

The present “reforms” give arranging the deckchairs on the Titanic a bad name. They don’t deal with the fact that the basic philosophy behind GCSES is flawed. No amount of tinkering will make them better.

Successive governments have baulked at the fundamental change required, which is to make GCSES two separate exams. The first is a School Leaving Certificate, aimed at those young people going into employment at 16 or apprenticeships, a qualification that would reassure employers that the person had achieved the basic standards of literacy and numeracy needed to cope with the world of work. The second is a more academic exam designed for those intending to move on to A-level and university.

In trying to do both, the current GCSE is succeeding in neither. We have become obsessed with making all our 16-year-olds sit the same exam.

Wayne Rooney and Stephen Hawking are two men of immense talent, but are we really suggesting that if they were 16 years old now the same exam would suit them both?

Our exam grades are not about the difficulty of the content, but about how those papers are marked. You can magic up any mix of grades you want by changing the boundaries – the mark at which a given grade is awarded.

It’s a politician’s dream. Make the content harder to placate your critics, but fix the grade boundaries so that not many more fail, thus quietening the howls of protest from disappointed teachers, candidates and parents.

Michael Gove showed great courage in campaigning to make exams harder. It remains to be seen whether his successors will be brave enough to embark on the fundamental structural reform that our young people deserve.