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The Cambridge ‘Brand’: A global fish that swallows minnows
In another part of the examining world, a very different series of take-overs had been
quietly taking place which were based not on competition but on control. The
University of Cambridge had never in its long history yielded control over any of its
constituent parts to any other body, and it was not about to begin with the minor
matter of its examining ‘business stream’.
The data in this section comes almost entirely from the interview I conducted with a
representative of what is now the OCR awarding body. While one would normally
research a variety of sources to achieve a balanced account, in the case of the
University of Cambridge this is not really an option. The complex and secretive
nature of its internal structures makes it virtually impossible for a researcher to gain
access to the decision-making processes that lie behind its operations. Therefore, I
found it both unexpected and illuminating when in the course of an interview the
subject broached of his own accord the series of takeovers Cambridge’s examining
arm - known since its Victorian birth as the University of Cambridge Local
Examinations Syndicate (UCLES)9 - has pursued in recent years.
When asked for his perspective on the examining boards in the 1990s, he felt that he
could better locate his recollections:
...a bit earlier than that. I first came to UCLES in 1985.... At that time there
were 22 exam boards ...and we were in the burgeoning Midland Exam Group,
and there were five of us: Southern Universities Joint Board (Bristol and
Southampton I think), Oxford & Cambridge [Joint Board], Cambridge, West
Midlands and East Midlands [CSE Boards]. Interesting Group, determined by
the Government. Cambridge was already talking to SUJB and ...within three or
four years...had absorbed SUJB. That was painless. Utterly and completely
painless. Not much of the SUJB to absorb, in truth: offices in Bristol - both
very classical examination boards, looked the same. SUJB was losing money,
the universities of the south didn’t want to carry on. So that was simple.
Relatively.