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

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universities’ examinations were ⁱⁱIikely to be more flexible and less subject to the
whims of cranks or bureaucrats than anything controlled by the government’'’ (Roach
1971: 235). In view of the Byzantine organisational structure of the Joint Board,
touched on in Chapter Four, it was hardly likely to be a flexible body. Worries about
government control were well in advance of their time, but indicative of the prevailing
suspicion of central direction in English educational circles.

In the north of England, a parallel structure was forming. The three colleges
Liverpool, Owens in Manchester and Yorkshire in Leeds federated in the 1880s under
the umbrella title of Victoria University. They had gained the allegiance of local
grammar schools through their provision of effective standards of inspection of those
schools and then of examining their pupils. As the colleges moved towards
independence as separate universities, they wished to retain some measure of
cooperation. To this end they formed the Joint Matriculation Board (JMB) in 1903.
Sheffield University was admitted to the JMB in 1905 and Birmingham University in
1916.³ This board formed a powerful counterpoise in the north to the
Oxbridge/London influence in the south. The JMB was considered by J L Brereton of
the Cambridge Syndicate to be more realistic than was London in its planning of
examinations and less affected by those interested only in university teaching.
ⁱⁱPerhaps this was due to the great advantage which the Board possessed in having
among its twenty-two members two headmasters and two headmistresses'” (Brereton
1944: 101). This generous assessment of what in modem marketised thinking was a
competitor is indicative of the spirit that prevailed among the Boards - certainly prior
to the advent of GCE and the first major change to their tranquil world. The JMB,
which ⁱⁱsoon became by far the largest” (Brereton 1944: 101), retained this strong
element of practitioners’ representation throughout its history, and passed on that

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