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

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schools’, inaugurated examinations as part of its function of inspecting schools and
accrediting teachers. However, the middle classes who paid for their children to attend
these schools were inclined to despise the ''intellectual and social pretensions''’ of
teachers, risen for the most part from the working class. (Roach, 1971 #1: 49) As well
as being coloured with teachers’ low status, the College of Preceptors’ impartiality
was suspect: it was seen as a case of teachers assessing themselves. For a time the
time the College sustained a limited following; its influence peaked at the end of the
nineteenth century, when it examined 17 000 candidates in 1893 (Montgomery 1965:
64). However, probably because of the impartiality factor, its qualifications were
refused recognition by the Board OfEducation after its creation in 1899. The Board
accredited only the qualifications of the university examining boards, so the College
of Preceptors declined to the status of a fringe organisation, still extant as the College
ofTeachers.

The process of convincing Victorian society of the value of competitive examinations
as a selection device seemed to begin with Robert Lowe’s introduction of competitive
examination for the Indian Civil Service through the India bill of 1853. Then Charles
Trevelyan’s positive experience of those examinations in India enabled him to
convince powerful Englishmen to support the idea for the Home Civil Service.
Trevelyan could be described as the role model for generations of civil servants
whose legacy was concealed behind the politicians they served. C E Trevelyan trained
at the East India Company’s college at Haileybury, and served very successfully in

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