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

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conversation, an awarding body Chief Executive spoke of their continuing
commitment:

There is no sign of either OCR or Edexcel pulling out of it all. OCR has always
said it would get out when faced with change it didn ^,t like, but it ^,s right in there
as ever. What is our real concern is the strange orthodoxy in QCA that to make
the Diploma [proposed by Tomlinson and the 2005 White Paper] work, we have
to think about changing everything. There is no acknowledgement of the
enormous risks involved in this approach. Could we please look at the
alternative of giving the awarding bodies the job of doing it and stop
destabilising things with suggestions of change?

(AQA3 2005)

What future awaits the boards: public and bureaucratic or
independent and democratic?

In line with my changed interpretation of the centralisation impulse, I can envisage
two versions of possible future developments, the rather doom-laden one I produced
originally and a more positive one following further reflection.

This is more than merely idle speculation. I believe that the destiny of the examining
boards has serious implications for English qualifications and, given their important
‘gate-keeping’ function in society, for the young people whom they accredit. My
research has, I maintain, demonstrated that there exists a social consensus around the
issue of qualifications which has consistent parameters. Any attempt to bring about
change which ignores those parameters is unlikely to succeed in becoming embedded
in the nation’s culture. Whether inspired by government’s quest for acountability or
reformers’ enthusiasm, any design which hopes to succeed must take account of the
pragmatism which has consistently dominated English responses to reform.
Wholesale change does not accord with that pragmatism. Yet government cannot

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