Sentinel comment: Exam spin defies logic
Anyone with even the most elementary education will know that if something seems too good to be true, then it probably will be.
So the teenagers currently celebrating their A-level successes will not be fooled by the Government spin heralding a 27th (yes, twenty seventh) consecutive year of record results.
The students who have worked hard to achieve their grades deserve both our respect and congratulations.
They didn't choose their role as political football. However they will recognise that any system which dishes out A-grades to 25 per cent of exam papers, awards C or above to three quarters of candidates... then claims the exams are not being dumbed down, defies logic.
Many, if not most, of today's employers and managers were schooled in an era when A-levels really were the country's gold standard educational qualification.
Therefore they, not unnaturally, look to use A-level results as a common benchmark to assess the suitability of candidates who apply to them for jobs. Increasingly they are being frustrated.
If every applicant who knocks on their door appears to have a string of top grades (more than 12 per cent of this year's candidates achieved straight As), then how can they begin to decide who is the brightest candidate?
Both employer and would-be employee lose out. The process of matching the right person with the right job becomes more random – for everyone involved. If sanity is to be restored then A-levels must be revamped.
Perhaps through a new A* grade. Perhaps by returning to more difficult exam papers. Whatever the case, we need to stop pretending that all our youngsters can be top of the class – regardless of their abilities.
More from our A Levels section:
Thousands face university heartbreak after record results
3 Comments
by Michael, Stoke
Friday, August 21 2009, 4:41PM
“Examiner. It's very easy for people to be patronising and arrogant towards people who have had a less succesfull school life and have ended up in low paid jobs in warehouses and call centres, but is a Degree the route to riches that the Academics all claim it to be.
I would suggest not. Successive Governments have, over the years, turned all the Polythechnics and a lot of local Colleges into "Universities" to the extent that it seems that there is now one on every street corner. Now the Government say that they intend to see 50% of all school leavers go on to University. To what end? So that every summer there is Tsunami of new graduates exiting our Universities all chasing a relative lack of jobs.
The end result? A lot of Graduates working in low paid jobs in warehouses and call centres, perhaps?”
by David, Burslem
Friday, August 21 2009, 12:42PM
“I'm not so sure that qualifications are being dumbed down.
Both of my children have achieved A grades in A level maths in the last two years, as I too did in 1976. Without out any doubt at all, the syllabus today is significantly tougher than the one that faced me. In fact, I didn't cover some of the material that is in today's A level until I began my maths degree. Further, through tutoring my children, I know both are far brighter than I was at the same age.
The issue, in my opinion, is that the people taking A levels are more academically able and better taught than my generation. For these reasons I don't consider that my degree or A levels are worth any more than those achieved today; they are not.
It is easy to take a swipe at those who have successfully passed their exams but it is also wrong. They have done the best that they can with what is in front of them and deserve every congratulation.
It is the system itself that needs to be reviewed.”
by THE EXAMINER, TUNSTALL
Friday, August 21 2009, 12:03PM
“Well said. Never mind lets all cary on, being glued to Dancing on Ice and Big Brother and all the rest. Don't forget the aim of every governent, even democratically elected ones, is to kind of subdue or let be subdued all of it's citizens so that they just keep paying their taxes and don't rock the boat. What better way to create a false impression of people really getting somewhere than to dumb-down virtually every qualification in the land. Just imagine the back-slapping and self-congratulation as such high achievement is cheered on in every call centre in the land. Let's drink a toast to the two B's and and a C generation. Cheers!”