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

240

This acquisition of an examining board by a listed company was cited in September
2002 by a bitter Sir William Stubbs as evidence of Education Secretary Estelle
Morris’s “amazing inability to turn educational ideas into policies." He claimed he
had written to her about ''whal would be a significant change to the system''’, but
received no reply. Then Junior Minister David Miliband later told him, “We believe in
a market policy; just let things go and see how it works" {Sunday Mirror 29
September 2002: 1). Stubbs’ warnings had certainly fallen on deaf ears, as the
takeover went through without questions being raised - except within the other
awarding bodies, who regarded with considerable suspicion this arrival of a listed
international company into their previously closed world of ‘not for profit’ bodies
with charitable status.

A less publicised takeover followed in November 2002 when the examinations
division of the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry was acquired by GOAL
plc with plans to “exploit the Company’s expertise [in the provision of vocational
qualifications] and extend its business into the UK post 16 education market and
overseas" (GOALplc 2001)

While aware of all this distracting activity, the awarding bodies’ primary objective
was to ensure that their systems were able to cope with the ever-increasing demands
made upon them. Following mergers, they had to harmonise different systems. OCR’s
problems in that respect were alluded to above. At the same time, the code of practice
drawn up by QCA required that their systems allocate a unique lifetime numerical
identifier for every candidate rather than simply allocate their own numbers to
candidates as entry forms were received. The advent of the modular AS∕A2 meant
reporting results on a rolling schedule rather than an end-of-course basis. New

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