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

187

and that meant putting PCs on people ^,s desks, it meant cabling this building -
so, so far it ^,s been costs.

(Edexcell 2000)

To the managers of the other examining boards, steeped in their established culture,
this seemed less the style of an educationist than that of a commercial company
manager. The new organisation’s Chief Executive expressed “strong support for
competition” with a regulator not like the existing educationally-based Schools
Curriculum and Assessment Authority (SCAA) but “looking to models from the
privatised utilities” (Spours 1997a). This was a clear challenge to the other
qualification providers. Marketised competition had truly entered what had been a
quiet commercial backwater.

Although opting voluntarily for unification, the newly merged BTEC did not accede
to the expectations of either NCVQ or Lord Dearing and quietly phase out its BTEC
qualifications in favour of the new GNVQ. Just as in the 1980s when NVQs were
created, it had “resisted angrily and young people continued to register for BTEC
awards in preference to NVQs” (Wolf 2002a: 220), Edexcel retained its successful
suite of BTEC qualifications and engaged in “...a squabble with...the oldNCVQ who
very much opposed the fact that we wanted to keep our BTECs. But we fought for the
BTEC. It was a good alternative” (Edexcel3 2004).

Despite retaining its BTECs and its dominance of the GNVQ sector, of which it had
captured about 75% of candidates, Edexcel couldn’t manage to increase its share of
the mainstream A-IeveI and GCSE market. This left it financially fragile and therefore
vulnerable to another takeover, which occurred following the problems it faced in
2002.

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