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

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ability of teachers to maximise the performance of their students if there is external
pressure to do so. One expert in the field expressed this finding:

Ifyou make a particular performance indicator a policy target and make the
stakes high enough, then the people at the sharp end will do everything they can
to improve their score on the performance indicator.

(Wiliam 2001: 59)

Regulating the qualifications market

A third issue that concerned the Boards was QCA’s approach to reducing the number
of specifications. Although the wide variety of syllabuses had been developed in
response to the demands of teachers over the years, the Boards had accepted Lord
Dearing’s observation that, in the interests of comparability, ⁱⁱThere is a strong case
for reducing syllabus numbers in a controlled and systematic way to improve the
quality of examinations and to enable a more comprehensive monitoring programme
to be carried out” (Dearing 1996: 87). Their concern at QCA’s manner of reducing
the syllabus numbers changed to alarm when a letter from a QCA official to the Joint
Council for General Qualifications stated bluntly that:

The number of specifications should reflect the reduction in the number of
awarding bodies in England. It is not appropriate for one of the three awarding
bodies in England to offer 30% more specifications than the other two; the
numbers of specifications in art, economics, English, psychology, and media
studies offered by AQA are not consistent with the overall pattern of provision.
(QCA 1999)

This was particularly difficult to accept in the context of market forces and the
enforced merger of the two Boards offering the largest number of A-Ievel syllabuses
which in 1998 had handled 65% of the A-Ievel entry (Tattersall 1999). [see Figure
4.3]

A compromise of sorts was agreed, but this issue was further proof that the Boards
were no longer free to design qualifications suited to their different client groups.

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