189
(0CR2 2003)
This explanation of the hitherto mysterious disappearance of the Southern
Universities GCE Board is included to establish Cambridge’s modus operandi in the
matter of takeovers: a process described as ‘absorbing’ and one that proceeds slowly,
away from media headlines. This minor episode in examining board history has not,
to the best of my knowledge, been chronicled elsewhere simply because of the
university’s consistent silence on its operations.
This slow but inexorable process of Cambridge-style expansion continued for the next
ten years, with only the final one - the creation of OCR - occasioning any significant
publicity. Another feature of the Cambridge approach was that, unlike most such
operations, finance was never a major consideration. This was clear from the
interviewee’s recollection of the creation of the GCSE Midland Examining Group:
The Midland Examining Group was interesting then [following the absorption
of SUJB]. It was left with four: two GCE boards and two CSE boards. The two
CSE boards, West Midlands and East Midlands, were the soundest financially
of all the CSE boards - north, south or middle. Both of them remained sound
right through to being absorbed. So there was no financial worry about MEG in
that context. In terms of GCE boards, Cambridge was as sound as anything can
be. Oxford & Cambridge was... not really. But we weren’t aware of that at the
time in the late 80s as we came into MEG.
(OCR2 2003)
It seemed that this successful federation of four Boards felt that, as the other GCSE
Groups gradually formed single organisations, iiMEG ,s federation was standing out a
bit.” Then began another series of discussions iiall around the shop” between
Cambridge and the West Midlands Board. They eventually came to an agreement that
West Midlands would sell its GCSE interest to Cambridge. Within twelve months the
East Midlands decided to merge with (ze, be absorbed by) UCLES. By 1993, the
remaining anomaly was iithe Oxford & Cambridge Board’s end of the GCSE”. How
to tidy up this anomaly: