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Denis Lawton interpreted the Boards’ removal from the SSEC in 1947 as a means of
reducing the influence of the universities over the GCE, but quoted an earlier view
which saw the change as clear evidence of a quest for increased central control:
Montgomery (1965) sees the constitution of the SSEC as a crucial factor in the
distribution of power. The removal of representatives of the examining bodies
from the SSEC was one important change; the increase in the Ministry’s
nominees from six to eight members in 1961 was another.
(Lawton 1984: 97)
After 20 years, early concerns about increased central control had subsided. Then
when a widespread outcry about government interference greeted David Eccles’ 1961
proposal for a Curriculum Study Group - designed to give the Minister access to the
‘secret garden’ of the curriculum rather than direct control over examinations -
Edward Boyle responded to these concerns by establishing a very different regulatory
body. The Schools Council exercised its regulatory responsibility in a very low-key
manner, as recalled in the interview by a long-serving member of the regulatory
structure, quoted more fully above:
Schools Council regulated, of course. Yes, it was done through A-Ievel syllabus
approval and scrutiny, wasn ,t it?
Yes, A-Ievel scrutiny in Schools Council days was a voluntary activity. The
boards saw it presumably as in their interest to have an external view of what
they did.
It was never really contentious. We sent our reports to the boards alone -
nothing public about them. And it was all done in a very ...civilised way in that
we sent these reports with recommendations and the boards were sort of trusted
to get on with it.
(QCA2 2003)
A view from the Boards saw the regulatory control as broadly following in the same
pattern over the years:
So there has always been the presence of regulation, as it were, in the schools
examinations system... since 1917. And I think if you then advance it with the
creation of O level and...A level, ...the same features are there of some degree
0f regulation of the system, with the government through the Ministry of
Education and [then] the Department of Education actually laying down the
features that the system should have, but leaving it very much to the boards as
deliverers.