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consultation by New Labour via Qualifying for Success “ the issue of credit value was
clarified with the AS now counting for 50 per cent of the A level grade as well as 50
per cent in terms of UCAS points and in performance tables” (Hodgson 2003: 84).
The use of the agentless passive “was clarified” can be assumed to indicate
responsibility to rest with either a minister’s Labour Party political advisers or
education department civil servants. What is certain is that no one with any sound
grasp of the results of such a ‘clarification’ would have failed to realise that it would
mean an inevitable rise in grades.
Yet both an able administrator and an intelligent Minister endorsed the decision. In
January 1999, Sir William Stubbs, Chairman of QCA, wrote to Baroness Blackstone,
Junior Minister with responsibility for qualifications. He was reporting on the
proposed changes that the regulatory authority had developed “to implement the
Government’s policy to broaden A levels...” Introducing the criteria for the new
Advanced Subsidiary examination, he referred to “a new AS qualification
representing the first half of the full A level and contributing half the weighting”
(Stubbs 1999: 6). This letter provides incontrovertible evidence that Sir William
suffered a form of cognitive dissonance regarding the finer points of assessment. His
advocacy of equal weighting for AS and A2 was in direct conflict with his second
firm principle about maintaining standards overt time, reported on the BBC’s
website:
QCA chairman Sir William Stubbs said on Wednesday the three awarding
bodies “had it made perfectly clear to them that they had to maintain standards
over time, that the standards of A-Ievel were not expected to go up, nor were
they expected to decline, and they have been reminded of that a number of
times. ”
(BBC.co.uk 19 September 2002)