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

181

felt that it made sense to bestow on the new GNVQs the reliability conferred by the
examining boards’ long history of A-Ievel examining. The major differences in
assessing practical as opposed to theoretical performance were not considered
problematic - except by those directly concerned. The Chief Executive of City and
Guilds had expressed his own continuing reservations about ‘gap bridging’:

I have real problems relating to the attitude of the academic awarding bodies
towards vocational training and accreditation of training, and I think it’s
endemic in the country - the attitudes towards craft versus academic skills.
There are some very strong prevailing... social snobberies associated with ‘it’s
better to have been to university than it is to be a plumber. ’

...I think it is probably far more appropriate to leave the accreditation of
vocational training to those organisations who understand it such as City and
Guilds...and to leave the [assessment of] academic or full-time education to
those people who understand that.

(City & Guilds 2000)

This view was not shared by everyone. Many - who later expressed their concerns
during the Guaranteeing Standards consultation in 1997 - were disappointed that the
Dearing Report did not address the problem of the many workplace qualification
providers. In connection with NVQs, Dearing had mildly suggested that “Government
departments should consider ways of encouraging a reduction in the number of
awarding bodies (currently over 100) awarding NVQs". There was no such diffidence
in the section of his report devoted to “The regulatory and awarding bodies" (Dearing
1996: 28).

Unifying ‘Awarding Bodies’: Takeovers, Mergers and ‘one-stop shops’

Dearing was very clear that bringing together the examining boards and the vocational
bodies administering GNVQ could both “unify the present binary structure" and
through reducing “the excessive proliferation of awards" ensure “parity of standards

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