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

134

Making the same point, Alison Wolf cites an observation made in 1952 by the chancellor
of the University of Chicago that: “In a fluid, industrial, scientific democracy, the more
specific an education is, the less likely it is to achieve the only purpose that it has - to
prepare the student for a particular kind of economic activity" (Wolf 2002b: 85). With
this evidence that academic education is valued both for its status and for its flexibility,
the outlook for work-based education in England is grim.

A similar conclusion was reached in 2002 by the authors analysing the changes to post-16
education that the Learning and Skills Council had brought about from 2000. They
suggest that “the overall prognosis for the latest attempt to produce a high quality work-
based route is not good" They harbour doubts:

...that institutional restructuring, of itself, will produce fundamental change;

that the failure of earlier re-brandings of work-based training was...an accident,
and that the latest formulation... will somehow be different;[and consider] that
there remains a fundamental ambiguity about the future, role, shape and relative
importance of the work-based route vis-a-vis full-time educational provision.
(Evans, Hodkinson 2002: 207)

Their concerns could well apply to the White Paper on 14-19 education - 14-19
Education and Skills - published in February of 2005. Despite widespread support for the
restructuring recommended in the previous October’s Tomlinson Report, whereby A
Levels and GCSEs would be replaced by an inclusive over-arching diploma to accredit
all attainment, the new Secretary of State for Education, Ruth Kelly, announced that:

GCSEs and A levels are internationally respected. They will be kept as a
cornerstone of 14-19 learning. They will continue to be assessed through rigorous
external examinations....

In achieving these objectives [recognition of and progression routes through
vocational qualifications], we believe that the Working Group on 14-19 Reform's
proposals for specialised Diplomas in vocational areas are right.

(DffiS 2005: 45, 47)

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