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

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apparently too subtle for the public at large to absorb, as was seen in the
misunderstandings inherent in the debate over standards, to be considered below.

The examining boards had not simply stood still while the unification movement was
gathering momentum around them. However, the Dearing Report’s recommendations
had suggested that ‘7/ze process of awarding bodies coming together across the binary
line should be encouraged by the GovernmenC (Dearing 1996: 30), and this
suggestion was quickly acted upon. Dearing’s clear message led Gillian Shephard, the
Secretary of State for Education, to launch in February 1997 a consultation to collect
views about the appropriate future shape of awarding bodies. Naturally, civil servants
at the DfEE designed this consultation paper: Guaranteeing Standards. With its title
indicating clearly the stated objective, the language of this ‘consultation’ was
reminiscent of the Latin structure of ‘questions expecting the answer yes’. Core
questions began , “Do you agree...^cC It proposed a reduction in the number of unitary
awarding bodies which would offer a reduced number of academic syllabuses
together with GNVQ qualifications. It was perhaps unsurprising that many did agree.
Despite the attachment of teachers in England to their right to choose from a range of
syllabuses and different Boards, widespread concerns about comparability of
standards weighed more heavily in the end with their representative bodies’ responses
to the consultation. The education world’s response to Guaranteeing Standards
showed support for unitary awarding bodies which would deliver a reduced number of
both academic and GNVQ qualifications. The only major objection came from those
who had hoped for a more radical unification. Many, from the Confederation of
British Industry (CBI 1997) to the newly-formed and ambitious Edexcel awarding
body (Edexcel 1997), were disappointed that there was to be no attempt to bring the
fully vocational NVQ qualifications under the same umbrella as A levels and

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