The English Examining Boards: Their route from independence to government outsourcing agencies

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Local authorities might have been more enthusiastic supporters for the proposals, but
following local government reorganisation in January 1974, Gosden points out that
they had become politicised as never before. (Gosden 1983: 85) Party political
debates in local education committees were not a friendly environment for thoughtful
responses to new ideas. Despite lukewarm support, the plan for the CEE was
submitted to the Secretary of State in 1976 and received Department of Education and
Science support in the form of concrete proposals for such a qualification in the 1979
Keohane Report. Gosden claims that despite this apparent endorsement of the CEE,
there were misgivings within the Department. When it came to a difference of opinion
between the Department and the Schools Council, there was no question where the
power lay. It seemed that the weakness in the proposal centred on the Schools
Council’s failure to involve the examining boards:

...the Department and. HMI [Her Majesty’s Inspectorate] have misgivings about
its merit [because] ...the Schools Council have not succeeded in demonstrating
that the considerable technical difficulties of examining over a wide spectrum of
the ability range have been solved. They have not offered an agreed and
workable plan for the administration of the proposed new examination by the
existing examining bodies.

(Quoted in Gosden 1983: 85)

This rare acknowledgement of the technical difficulties of examining did not,
unfortunately, take deep root within the education department. Had it done so, there
might have been more effective outcomes subsequently in the cases of both GCSE
and Curriculum 2000. One can only speculate as to whether the CEE might have
survived had the examining boards been included - or at least consulted - by the
Schools Council. In the event, the CEE was left to wither on the vine, along with the
reputation of the Schools Council. As its influence waned, the Council persevered
with addressing post-16 problems and suggested an intermediate (I) level examination
between O level and A level. (Plaskow 1985: xii) This too proved fruitless. Despite its

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