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

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Secondary Education (GCSE) as a single 16+ examination. What had been a total of
23 (9 GCE and 14 CSE) boards took various approaches to the restructuring process.
By this time the Bristol board had merged with AEB, the Durham board with JMB
and the Joint Oxford and Cambridge board remained aloof, so the resulting
constellation produced four English GCSE Groups associated with the five remaining
GCE boards in England:

• London and East Anglia Group (LEAG) with the University of London Board;

• Southern Examining Group (SEG) with the University of Oxford Delegacy of
Local Examinations and the Associated Examining board;

• Midland Examining Group (MEG) with the University of Cambridge Local
Examinations Syndicate;

• Northern Examining Authority (NEA) with the Joint Matriculation Board.

While they still controlled their A-Ievel provision, the examining boards which had
grown out of the Victorian culture of a government which remained at a remove from
qualifications were now subject to strong central control. Qualifications had become a
matter of interest to the evolving “managerial state”. This major shift was clear to at
least one assessment expert, who observed that GCSE brought in:

...a national syllabus (one would hesitate to call it a curriculum) enforced via
national criteria.... There could hardly be a clearer, or more succinct
illustration of the development of central intervention over the process of
schooling. By designing the product, or outcome, the DES intends to shape the
process.

(Gipps 1986: 16)

In similar vein, Desmond Nuttall, perhaps the leading assessment expert at the time,
identified what he saw as flaws in the new examination:

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