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

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building gradually during the 1990s, but peaked at the end of the decade just as
demand for their services burgeoned. Since 1988 when the National Curriculum had
introduced Standard Assessment Tests at ages 7, 11 and 14, English pupils had
become the world’s most externally tested school population. Yet it seemed that little
thought had been given to the source of skilled individuals needed to do the marking
of these assessments.

At one time it had been the case that teachers would volunteer to mark O-Ievel or A-
Ievel papers in order to combine increasing their professional expertise with an
opportunity to supplement a low level of income. Two apparently unrelated
developments had undermined this practice. Firstly, the Boards were supplying ever
more transparent data on students’ performance. One no longer had to take on the
burden of marking in the evenings and at weekends in order to hone one’s pedagogy
to ensure a better performance by one’s classes. Secondly, with an ever-increasing
workload and an improving salary structure, teachers’ motivation to take on extra time
commitments for a limited financial return was diminishing. Then Curriculum 2000
changed the A-Ievel assessment pattern from what had been largely terminal
examinations to AS and A2 modules examined at three points in each year. It was left
to the Boards to cope with this diminishing supply of markers while the number of
assessments was suddenly increased by policy decisions beyond their control.

Neither the DfEE∕DfES nor QCA - which as the system’s regulator might have been
expected to take an interest in the issue - showed awareness of the problem until the
autumn of 2001, when QCA’s October Conference, oddly located at the Aston Villa
football ground in Birmingham, focused on the potential crisis in marker supply. The
departure of the DfEE delegation from this conference immediately after the keynote

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