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While I suggest that the omission of any representatives from the examining boards
may have contributed to the failure of Schools Council examination reforms to get off
the ground, another possible contributory factor lies in the procedures of what its
historian describes as “an untidily democratic institution” (Plaskow 1985: 4).
The Schools Council attracted a number of charismatic individuals to lead its
frequently imaginative curriculum projects. However, even its defenders admit that its
procedures were “heavily bureaucratic and arcane”, with proposers of papers
sometimes having to endure eighteen months “as papers trundled through
committees”. It was not unknown for proposers to appear and argue their case before
six different groups, “all of whom then expressed a view to Programme Committee,
who gave the final verdict” (Plaskow 1985: 4).
Another analyst suggests that, rather than bureaucracy, it is probable that the Schools
Council’s principal virtue was also its fatal flaw:
The Schools Council had no power to make any change; it was non-
prescriptive. It could survey the scene, consider the possibilities and make
enquiries into them, make recommendations and seek to persuade people to
adopt them. In this sphere [changing the post-16 curriculum and examinations]
it did all that could be done in each of these, but did not succeed in the last.
(Jennings 1985: 26)
An account of the abortive series of imaginative but ineffectual proposals for the
reform of post-16 qualifications illustrates the weakness in the Schools Council’s
voluntarist approach. It also serves as relevant motivation for the education
department’s growing tendency for increasing central control. It is salutary to
remember that, during the golden age of this “untidily democratic” regulator, nothing
concrete was achieved in the way of qualification reform.
Because of strong teacher representation - thirty-four out of a Council membership of
sixty-four (Gillan 2003: 97) - the Council was aware of the dissatisfaction in sixth