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CSE was a second-class qualification of no value in progression either to further
education or to employment, the essential public support was lacking. CSE did not
take root in England’s culture. Had it been conceived with the imprimatur of the
established examining boards, its fate might have been different. Certainly, in
response to a similar wish to enhance the status of vocational qualifications during the
1990s, those Boards were seen by Lord Dearing as able to confer such status.
With CSE placing an unprecedented level of control with teachers and local
authorities, a second recommendation of the Beloe Report seemed to counteract the
prevailing democratising trend and met a distinctly hostile reception. The Ministry
agreed with the report’s suggestion that the Secondary Schools Examinations Council
"needed the assistance of a small but highly qualified professional team to study in
depth the problems posed by the introduction of a new system of national
examinations" (Gosden 1983: 75). Gosden attributes this development to English
ministers’ growing awareness of the international interest in curriculum matters. At
meetings such as those of the United Nations Educational, Social and Cultural
Organisation (UNESCO), they "could do little more than incant the doctrine that in
Britain the teacher was a law unto himself' (Gosden 1983: 76).
A new Minister, David Eccles, attempted to reassure teachers and local education
authorities that there would be no threat to existing powers resulting from his proposal
to create within the ministry a Curriculum Study Group. His soothing words had little
effect, for “the response from the education service was almost unanimous
opposition." (Gosden 1983: 76). The Government, still retaining remnants of the view
that cuπiculum matters were not the business of government despite its growing
interest in what Eccles described as a “secret garden", sidelined the Curriculum Study