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

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Written sources to locate the examining boards

A historical narrative, periodised by the major changes experienced by the Boards,
locates them as organisations within the English secondary education system and
identifies some of the deeply embedded social and political strands which lie behind
those changes. The underlying issue is that of control: identifying the shifts that
occurred almost surreptitiously.

The first historical section follows the relatively late development of a secondary
education system in England and documents the origins of the examinations which
developed to accredit the products of that system and to select them for higher
education.

The next period focuses on the major changes to both the secondary system and the
examinations structure resulting from the 1944 Education Act, which with relatively
little further change, continued until the last decade of the 20^th century which, as
stated above, I treat as the period from 1988 to 2002.

The sources of the data for these sections are principally the education histories
mentioned above, as well as the various official reports and government circulars
which detailed the policies and the regulations which would enact them.

Because the focus of a significant body of the research is on very recent events, I have
frequently had to rely on media sources. The Times Educational Supplement has often
proved to be the only source which reports on attitudes within the educational world
to the various events I have been researching. I recognise that this is a definite

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