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The new qualification was introduced in 1965. Responsibility for creating the courses
and assessing them lay with Local Education Authorities and their teachers through a
network of 14 Regional Examining Boards defined by geographical area, funded by
the LEA and under the broad supervision of a CSE Committee of the Schools
Council. The established examining boards were not involved. They were initially
worried that this new qualification would threaten their existing provision. The
Associated Examining Board was particularly vulnerable in this respect because a
large part of its entry came from the поп-selective schools who would eagerly take up
CSEs. However such early fears were soon relieved because the GCE O level retained
its allure: “For pupils, parents and employers GCE was more readily accepted as a
qualification than CSE, (Eamshaw 1974: 30). In fact, those pupils who attained good
results at CSE often joined the sixth form for a year to try to upgrade to O level. They
were rarely successful, a fact which fuelled the pressure for reform of sixth-form
provision.
Not only did CSE fail to threaten the providers of GCE; it enabled the established
Boards to consolidate their financial position. As the least financially secure, the
Associated Examining Board was able at last to acquire financial stability after the
introduction of CSE:
The CSE Boards decided on a scale of fees considerably higher than those
charged by GCE Boards whilst inevitably providing at this early stage in their
development a restricted range of syllabuses. By comparison GCE examinations
offered very good value indeed, and the Board were able to raise their fees
appreciably without incurring opposition. In the case of the AEB the rise in fees
and the increase in entries transformed the financial position within one year,
changing an estimated deficit of £11 500 to a surplus of almost £50 000.
(Earnshaw 1974: 30)
This is clear evidence that the Schools Council, like its predecessor the Secondary
Schools Examinations Committee, took no interest in examination fees. All