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The Certificate of Secondary Education: New Boards as quality control
The first step in opening English qualifications to a wider range of young people
occurred almost ‘beneath the radar’ of the examining boards. The new qualification’s
design, administration and assessment was in the hands of teachers and local
education authorities.
Pressure for wider access to accreditation through public examinations came from
“‘outside sources’ - parents, some schools, some teachers, employers - and in the
face of strong opposition from the Ministry and the Inspectorate"’ (Gosden 1983: 75).
One man recognised that addressing this demand could provide the perfect
opportunity for local education authorities and teachers to win some control over the
curriculum from the examining boards. Sir William Alexander was chairman of and
the moving spirit behind the Association of [Local Authority] Education Committees.
As one of their representatives on the Secondary Schools Examinations Council, he
suggested Surrey’s ChiefEducation Officer, Robert Beloe, to head the sub-committee
which the SSEC was setting up to advise on a possible way of widening access to
accreditation of attainment at 16. As Alexander had planned, the Beloe Committee
recommended the creation of a new Certificate of Secondary Education (CSE) to
accredit the attainment of the tranche of 40% of pupils for whom the GCE Ordinary
Level was out of reach. In March 1961, the SSEC advised Edward Boyle, the
Conservative Education Minister, to accept the Beloe Report’s proposal. Gosden
suggests that this ‘U-turn’ resulted from a recognition that:
...examinations, provided by independent examining bodies, had, despite
official discouragement, grown so rapidly that there was serious danger of the
curriculum and teaching in the schools coming under external control and that
after another five years the minister would probably find himself faced with a
situation much more difficult to remedy.
(Gosden 1983: 72)