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

200

(Dearing 1996: 88)

A year later, in the Guaranteeing Standards consultation document, this
recommendation was strengthened and set out as a given rather than an issue for
consultation:

Fundamental to any rationalisation of provision in academic examinations is a
significant reduction in the number of syllabuses offered in particular
qualifications. The Secretary of State has already strongly endorsed the
recommendations in the Dearing review, and in the Standards over Time report,
for reducing the number of GCE A level syllabuses, following a similar
rationalisation already put in place for GCSE syllabuses. SCAA has now asked
existing GCE A level boards to limit new syllabus proposals to a maximum of
two in all large entry subjects.

(DffiE 1997a: 17)

While this requirement seemed on the surface to be a straightforward one, in fact it
impacted very differently on the three awarding bodies because of the differences in

their historic ‘market shares’. [See Figure 4.3] Clearly AEB and NEAB, later merged
to form AQA, had much to lose from such a development.

Apart from the financial impact, a more fundamental result of this reduction in
syllabuses was the significant reduction in the Boards’ individuality, built up over the
years through designing syllabuses to cater for different students in different
institutions. This had been their principal raison d’etre since their creation. It certainly
seemed counter to the market ethos which pervaded the decade. It also peeled away
one more aspect of the Boards’ independence, and indicated that central control was
the means by which that independence was being diminished.

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