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

14

secondary education, the new notion of examinations and the role of the public
schools.

The value of primary sources is particularly evident when they are written with the
clarity and elegant prose of the 1911 Dyke Acland Report. This investigation into the
plethora of university and professional examinations faced by young people
recommended a system of national qualifications which resulted in the creation of the
School Certificate and Higher School Certificate examinations. The report is
admirably concise. With a transparent table of contents, it provides a clear rationale
for its recommendations, and includes full transcripts of the evidence provided by the
many witnesses whom the Committee heard. However, while these early reports have
provided valuable insights into how the current system developed, they throw no light
on the early years of the examining boards.

Unfortunately, as the century proceeded and the number of reports, circulars, green
and white papers burgeoned, their language became increasingly influenced by the
tendency to bland obscurity which now characterises official documents. Despite the
greatly increased ease of printing and reproduction, today reports like that of Sir Ron
Dearing in 1996 (Dearing 1996) merely list the organisations (rarely individuals) who
gave evidence but provide not even the gist of their views, still less the entire
transcript. As a result it has become increasingly difficult to gather anything more
than a superficial impression of the thinking behind such sources.

Given such limitations, sources such as the Norwood Report (SSEC 1943), and the
later series of qualification-related government reports and consultation papers such
as Education and Training for the 21^st Century (DES, Employment 1991), Dearing’s
Review of Qualifications for 16-19 Year Olds (Dearing 1996), Guaranteeing

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