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deep-rooted conviction that, as he recalled in a recent interview, “the idea of building
the credibility of work-based learning and increasing the flexibility of the academic
side was worth pursuing” (Dearing 2003).
Dearing had first-hand experience of the unifying of regulatory agencies when in
1994, to general approval, the National Curriculum Council (NCC) and the Secondary
Examinations and Assessment Council (SEAC) merged to form the Schools
Curriculum and Assessment Authority (SCAA), with Ron Dearing in the chair. Since
their creation in 1989, rumours had proliferated of tensions and rivalries between the
NCC in its pleasant canal-side offices in York and the SEAC, which existed in more
of a rabbit warren in Notting Hill Gate. Whether or net there was any substance to
such rumours, the stated objective in merging them was the logical one of seeking
coherence between the bodies regulating both the curriculum’s structure and the
means of assessing pupils. In this merger too the examining boards experienced a shift
in the balance of power: the unification of the curriculum and assessment bodies lent
greater weight to judgements emerging from SCAA.
Another continuing concern was ensuring the validity of the new vocational
qualification, the GNVQ. As Chair of SCAA, Ron Dearing had an ex officio seat on
the body that had been established to regulate vocational qualifications, an
arrangement which made him “familiar with both sides of the equation” (Dearing
2003). The equation in question involved the new qualification that NCVQ had
designed. The regulatory arrangement for the General National Vocational
Qualification (GNVQ) paralleled that between SCAA and the examining boards. The
three vocational bodies BTEC, City & Guilds and RSA had developed the new