27
(c) Confidential Papers from AQA
Finally, in my role as a Trustee of the Associated Examining Board (until March
2000) and then of the Assessment and Qualifications Alliance (until March 2003), I
have had access to papers issued under confidential cover. These have been of
particular help with aspects of the financial pressures on that Board, which I identify
as a very significant factor leading to the crisis over results in September 2002.
I want now to take a long look at the English examining boards and bring them from
the periphery of academic enquiry where they have so long existed to the central
focus of this study - and to locate them as an essential factor in the English system.
This survey of the literatures where the examining boards might have featured but did
not has determined the thesis methodology. If the current situation of the examining
boards is to be the focus of my analysis, I must begin by establishing how they
reached that situation.