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

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English practice which this study contends has had and continues to have serious
consequences.

Having examined contemporary issues of the Times Educational Supplement, I have
found no evidence of any concern about the proposed abolition of examinations. This
lack of reaction is likely due not to support for the idea but to greater concern at the
time over a more immediate issue: the omission of any mention of the public schools,
as discussed in the prologue to this chapter. With that aspect of “the contestation that
underlay the settlement of 1944” (McCulloch 1994: 116) safely sidelined, Butler had
to deal with the knotty problem of interdenominational sensitivities which had stalled
previous attempts at reform. As discussed above, he managed to reassure both sides of
the debate by inventing a hybrid system of state and church secondary schools.

A last look at the Norwood Report reveals that its unintended consequences were far
more lasting than any of its principal recommendations. The three-level secondary
structure gradually gave way to a comprehensive system from the mid-1960s. Yet by
conceding that the grouped School Certificates be replaced with single-subject
examinations, Sir Cyril achieved exactly the reverse of his objective. English students
now regard it as their fundamental right to select the subjects that they will study.
Attempts to encourage a broad post-16 curriculum with a wider element of general
education have proved singularly unsuccessful. Above all, far from withering away as
Norwood had intended, external examinations have become embedded in the structure
OfEnglish education, and continue to exert a powerful influence over young people’s
future pathways.

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