Monopolising the examining board system in England: a theoretical perspective in support of reform

Abstract

The fiascoes that seem to accompany the annual publication of examination results in England, the subsequent inquiries instituted to ensure they ‘never happen again’ and the Secretary of State’s decision, reversed six months later because of fears about possible EU legal challenges, to ‘end competition between exam boards’ raise some interesting issues about the way Examination Boards (or ‘Awarding Bodies’) operate in what is partly a competitive and partly a cooperative market. At the operational level, they need to make sufficient profit from the fees they charge schools to operate the assessment and awards system effectively; at the strategic level, they need to police the proliferation of awards so that some reasonable level of efficiency is obtained in the system. This paper models the education awards market such that the implications of the various alternative strategies for achieving the twin objectives of effectiveness and efficiency can be understood. It describes how Awarding Bodies cooperate and compete to maximise profit, and justifies the original decision in September 2012 by minister Gove to create a monopoly in the awards and assessment market.

Keywords:

• theory
• quantative

Notes

1. C.f. reports in the press; e.g. The Independent, February 7, 2013.

2. Apart from the three main ones (AQA, Edexcel and OCR), the other five are: CIE (University of Cambridge International Examinations), which is traditionally an international examination board, but now offers the Cambridge Pre-U as an alternative to A-levels for state schools and is owned by Cambridge Assessment which also controls OCR; CCEA (Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment), which is mostly active in Northern Ireland; ICAAE (International Curriculum and Assessment Agency Examinations), which is a very small specialised awarding body; the WJEC (Welsh Joint Education Committee), which is owned by the Welsh local authorities; and the one examination board in Scotland, the SQA (Scottish Qualifications Authority). The JCQ (Joint Council for Qualifications), established in January 2004, is their representative body.

3. The previous regulator was the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA), formed on 1 October 1997 through a merger of the National Council for Vocational Qualifications (NCVQ) and the School Curriculum and Assessment Authority (SCAA). In September 2007, the government announced that the regulatory functions of the QCA would move to the new body, Ofqual. In April 2008, Ofqual began work as the independent regulator of qualifications, examinations and assessments in England (and vocational qualifications in Northern Ireland), accountable to Parliament rather than to government ministers. The remaining work of the QCA was transferred to the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency (QCDA) with effect from 1 April 2010. The QCDA in turn ceased functioning in March 2012 when its examination administration work was taken over by the Standards and Testing Agency (STA), the executive agency of the Department for Education, and the Teaching Agency, which looks after National Curriculum assessment.

4. In 2002, there were 98 awarding bodies offering approved qualifications; the number had risen to 144 by 2009.

5. The main concern is that Awarding Bodies lower standards across their syllabuses (specifications) in order to attract more schools (centres).

6. In other words, to one with a higher percentage of candidates achieving grade C and above.

7. It also assumes that a fixed output is required collectively from the Awarding Bodies every year.

8. This is in support of Wolf’s 2011 recommendation.