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...became a University discussion...and there was agreement that that should be
taken on by UCLES as well. So effectively in 1993 MEG became a single
organisation as part of UCLES... [with a] Chief Executive not in the sense that
you had total independence, because you shared an awful lot with
UCLES....UCLES has always been the parent.
(OCR2 2003)
Being the parent in this sense means having ultimate control, including financial
responsibility. This consistent policy of retaining control suggests a potential for
conflict with the parallel and equally strong tendency for central control over the
examining boards. This conflict was to come to a head with the A-Ievel crisis of
September 2002, discussed in the next chapter.
Meanwhile, the various changes within the UCLES structure involved the need for “a
culture shift for quite a few people". MEG continued to flourish and “internally it
wasn ,t fighting too many battles. Much more of the battles [sic] were fought over the
A level". This was unsurprising when the complex moves taking place are described:
We had the Cambridge Board [and] independently the Oxford & Cambridge
Board. In GCSE terms, Oxford Delegacy of course was in joint venture with the
AEB. But there was the Oxford Board for A level, and the University of Oxford
had decided that they didn ,t really want to be in this much longer. So therefore
it had only one organisation it was determined to talk to, and that was the
University of Cambridge. So the two universities decided to sort out their exam
boards. I expect you know that the Oxford & Cambridge Board has never been
a single board. Not throughout all its history. It was two autonomous bits. The
Cambridge end of Oxford & Cambridge was just another syndicate [committee]
at the University of Cambridge, set up specifically in conjunction with a
delegacy set up in Oxford which was just another delegacy [committee] of the
University of Oxford, for a particular group of schools: the independent
schools. Quite different in purpose to both the Oxford Delegacy and the
Cambridge Syndicate. Completely autonomous except for a board - literally a
board ofpeople - who sat on top of them And this board came to an agreement
to allocate subjects to their independent entities. So actually, when we came to
the A level, we really had four bodies.
(OCR2 2003)
This exquisitely intricate arrangement - derived from the enduring principle of the
need to ensure separate examination provision for the private sector by the two
ancient universities neither of which would yield control to the other - seems