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

77

tradition to its successor bodies the Northern Examinations and Assessment Board
(1993) and the Assessment and Qualifications Alliance (2000). It is this factor which
has characterised this board with a strong public service ethos, an important aspect of
how it responded to the pressures of the 1990s.

The universities of Durham and Bristol eventually each formed their own examining
boards. This brought to seven the number of English boards, with the Welsh Board
the arbiter for university entrance in the Principality. At the outset, they concentrated
on providing examinations to select students for the particular universities of which
they formed a part. Gradually the universities came to accept each others’
qualifications, although it was far from an automatic process. The Charities
Commission granted them charitable status, which they have retained. This structure
of seven English university examining boards became an accepted part of the
educational landscape and adapted effortlessly to the establishment of a national
qualification structure in 1911.

Part 2: Rationalising examinations: the move to national School
Certificates

Once examinations had proved their effectiveness in university selection, their
popularity spread rapidly. Before the end of the 19^th century, most professional bodies
required applicants to sit their particular entrance examinations. The result was that
young people faced the prospect of sitting numerous selection tests as they sought
future pathways. This proliferation concerned the Board of Education, established in
1899, and led it to set up the Consultative Committee on Examinations in Secondary

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