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

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3 What evidence is there of a shift of control from the Boards to the State?

As well as the evidence of increased central control related to the above changes in
examinations, I have produced evidence of a general tightening of central control.
Whether this was part of the wider culture of the 1990s’ moves to marketisation, with
its preference for unification and increased accountability through central regulation,
or, as I now conclude, an almost accidental consequence of a series of attempts to
rectify systemic flaws, the result has been a severe reduction of the examining boards’
ability to make independent decisions.

The marketisation fervour that infused the world of education after the 1988
Education Reform Act had a limited effect on the examining boards - in their case
increasing the need to compete for ‘clients’: firstly following the introduction of
GCSE and again after they were required to form unitary awarding bodies which
provided GNVQs. However their market was an artificial one, in that the clientele was
a fixed age-group and their ‘product’ was heavily regulated. After limited success in
‘selling’ its GCSEs, the London board was forced to merge with the more successful
BTEC vocational body and continue under the name Edexcel.

When after 1997 the now unitary awarding bodies were required to offer GNVQs as
well as their academic qualifications, the tables were turned and the body least
favoured by the market was suddenly ‘in pole position’. Edexcel had inherited
BTEC’ s 75% market share of applied qualifications and then its financial basis was
secured when it was bought by Pearson International. Next it was the previously
dominant AQA which was coming under increasing financial pressure, having been
forced to buy out the uneconomic GNVQs offered by City & Guilds. Similar financial

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