19 September 2003

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Today is 19 September 2003, a year and six days after Friday 13 September 2002, when the Times Education Supplement raised the ripple of a problem with the A level examination results.

Friday 13, and the subsequent events, are remembered by all of us involved in education vividly.

I think it is now safe to say that the problems of last year have been avoided in 2003.

Young people and their parents can be certain that the true value of their achievements have been recognised.

I place on record the fact that this outcome has been the result of sheer hard work by thousands of dedicated and professional people. We should pause to reflect on the extent of their achievement.

Consider the dimensions of the campaign over the last 12 months:

• Mike Tomlinson's two reports on the causes of the problem
• Implementation, by the awarding bodies and the regulatory authorities, of all the recommendations
• The production of exemplification material for fourteen subjects and performance descriptions for a further 58
• The intensive training programs which were provided to support the application of this material
• The careful revision of the Code of Practice
• The public information and communications strategy, A Level of Pride
• The Student Roundtable, which had a significant input into all of this work
• The recruiting and training of examiners by the examination boards, to meet anticipated shortfalls in the wake of the 2002 experience, and the introduction of marker centres
• And the bringing together, in a highly productive amalgam, of the teacher unions and head teacher associations, the examination boards and the regulatory authorities, with a very clear goal: to ensure that young people would this year receive true value for their work, and receive it on results day.

That goal was achieved because thousands of people have worked hard to make it possible: teachers and head teachers; college lecturers and principals; examinations officers; the teacher unions and head teacher associations; the directors and trustees of the awarding bodies, their chief executive officers and their staff; the staff of the regulatory authorities; senior officials within the DfES; and the Minister for School Standards and the Secretary of State in England, who have backed us to the hilt in securing successful delivery.

There was something of the Dunkirk spirit about the way in which everyone rallied to the cause. More than 60,000 of them being markers.

Those who made this achievement real have earned, and richly deserve, the gratitude of hundreds of thousands of young people and their parents.

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There could not be a more appropriate theme for the 2003 Conference of the Joint Council for General Qualifications than Challenge, Change and Continuity.

The Challenge is to recognise:

• That our Dunkirk, like that in May 1940, was a real step towards victory, but not a victory in itself;
• That the success of Summer 2003 means that the system survived; it does not mean that underlying problems in the delivery of examinations have been resolved;
• That the immense energy and professionalism displayed over the last twelve months to address one set of problems, demonstrates the enormous potential that exists amongst us to address the delivery problems as well;
• And that the solutions to those problems are available within the limits of existing resources, structures and legislation, if only we have the confidence to seize them.

Change, because of its absolute urgency:

• If public examinations are to be delivered without the present unacceptably high levels of public risk;
• If delivery of the A level is to endure as the rock underpinning our hopes and aspirations for the future of the six million young people who will reach eighteen years of age over the next ten years, when an even better credential, attracting much greater participation, might be in place;
• And if the costs of this enterprise - to parents, to schools and colleges, to examination boards, and to governments - are to be held at acceptable levels, while delivering examinations effectively and efficiently.

It is about good management.

It is about the examination boards and the regulators coming together with government, and harnessing support from the private sector, to create a sustainable new paradigm – and doing so with the support of teachers, head teachers and parents.

In the light of the proven success such a coalition in support of young people has had this Summer, I have every confidence that this can be achieved.

Continuity, because the A level is a qualification of strength and value that has served Britain for more than half a century. Few qualifications have so dutifully fulfilled their purpose for so long.

Protection of the jewels is critical.

We must preserve the values and achievements of the past; conserve and sustain all that is important in specification, in choice, and in diversity; and continue with the rigorous application of professional judgement to the determination of standards and grade boundaries, the quality and rigour of which is without parallel elsewhere.

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While we were successful this year, it is now clearer than ever before that the examination and test system in England is not sustainable either operationally or financially as currently constituted.

The delivery of results this year was secured on the basis of intense process management by senior executives and staff in the QCA and in the awarding bodies, and on the very substantial goodwill of examiners, of whom many took on significantly greater loads than in previous years to get the work done.

The tolerances however remain far too fine, and can place an examination board within hours of failure to deliver results, because of issues relating to scale, logistics and timeline: over one million students at A level, AS or GCSE; attending 15 million examinations in 6000 schools and colleges; their scripts distributed in the main by Royal Mail to 60,000 markers, and returned; and the awarding meetings held to finalise results - all within an eight week examination period, twice a year.

While being the international benchmark for marking and grading, and for maintaining standards year on year, we are far from world's best practice in the infrastructure of logistics and administration to support it.

• The scripts in a particular subject from a particular centre are all marked by the same marker; best practice has each marker receiving scripts randomly from across all centres.
• Each marker marks all the answers on the script; best practice has markers specialising in answers to a limited range of questions.
• The early detection of patterns of aberrant marking are difficult; best practice has inbuilt detection mechanisms, such as many or even all scripts being double-marked, and the marking of unidentified common scripts by all examiners.
• Twenty-five million scripts move back and forth around the country by first class mail; best practice reduces movement to a minimum, by means of electronic transfer or the use of marking centres. Where scripts must be moved, the bundles are bar-coded, receipt and transfer are signed off, and the movement of bundles is tracked on-line. Although the number of missing scripts is a very small percentage of the total, none of us can accept that scripts for 1062 students were missing on results day.
• Although there was some improvement in 2003, there were still over one million late entries and 70,000 'pirate entries' (that is, students who present for examination on the day, without registering an entry with the examination board). This compounds the logistical difficulties faced by awarding bodies, potentially to the point of system failure. World's best practice is that this problem simply doesn't exist.

Without substantial and early reform, the system will continue to operate at unacceptable levels of public risk. Yet there is no real prospect of easing the total assessment load in the next two major summer cycles, because it is not possible to make the necessary changes to specifications which would be required to do so.

I believe there is a clear road ahead to realisation of the necessary reforms, and that it can be secured by and through the examination boards working with the regulatory authorities. But it requires all of us to have the confidence to embrace early and substantial reform.

In consultation with the regulatory authorities for Wales and Northern Ireland, Sir Anthony Greener, the Chairman of the QCA and I are now meeting with the Chairs and Chief Executives of the examination boards, in the first of a series of meetings in which we will ask for detailed briefings on their reform programs in areas such as systems, processes, technology, financial vulnerabilities and recruitment. Clearly, the boards and their governing bodies do not want to continue to live with their current high exposure to risk.

As a catalyst to the reform process, the QCA has established six modernisation programs, after consultation with the examination boards and the teacher and head teacher associations.

First, and as a foundation for the others, we have contracted PricewaterhouseCoopers to undertake a detailed financial analysis of the examinations system, to tell us what it actually costs to run. Currently, there is no clarity about how much England actually spends on examinations and tests, what it is spent on, and where it comes from.

When one takes into account the costs incurred by schools and colleges in fees, other cash outlays and staff time, together with the operating expenses of examination boards and the regulatory authorities, and direct and indirect government funding of various types, there is evidence to suggest that the total cost might be in excess of £750 million per year.

A huge investment, yet again, this year, we are likely to see awarding bodies reporting substantial deficits - this is not a profitable business to be in - and the cost to schools and colleges has soared to clearly unacceptable levels.

Now, we want PWC to give us the actual total cost, and its components in detail, and to model alternative ways in which that existing funding might be configured to better effect.

Clearly, reform requires investment, both public and private. If we can assist the examination boards to drive their reform programs forward by reconfiguring the existing level of investment more intelligently, we will increase the prospect of those reforms being both substantial and early.

The second program is about building a national pool of examiners, paying them and training them properly, and leveraging recruitment and retention programs nationally. This takes up the proposal from the Secondary Heads Association for a body such as an Institute of Chartered Examiners.

The objective is to establish a large, diverse and permanent corps of examiners, highly professional and suitably rewarded, which would renew its ranks from year to year but would constitute an enduring force of predictable size and known quality. Clearly, this requires new recurrent expenditure, or existing recurrent expenditure put to better purpose.

The third program is to reduce the administrative burden on the examination offices in schools and colleges. We need to move quickly to achieve convergence in the paperwork, processes and systems of the three major awarding bodies in England, so that requirements for schools become significantly less complex.

It seems certain that there will be savings for schools, and that real efficiencies will be achieved, if teachers are deployed in exam offices only on professional responsibilities, leaving administration to be done by administrative staff; and if administrative procedures are standardised across awarding bodies, rather than the exam office in each centre having to deal with three separate sets of requirements.

The fourth program is a development of the third, in that the objective is to move from a paper-based system in examination offices, to a system that is based on electronic communication. Schools would input their entries and receive their results in common electronic format, regardless of which examination boards they were using. Entries would be tracked and amended electronically, rather than by telephone.

The fifth program is aimed at making the physical logistics for the movement of scripts and other material much more robust: collection and delivery by courier, bar-coding of bundles, a tracking system that will provide accurate information online about the location and stage of processing of all papers and scripts.

And the final program is about replacing the movement of a substantial number of scripts by electronic imagery, or the scanning of scripts, which can be manipulated and marked on screen.

As well as increasing security, this offers the prospect of early detection of aberrant marking (because the same script can be distributed to different markers by a second examiner); it randomises the delivery of scripts, rather than a single examiner receiving all the scripts from the one school; and it allows the various answers on a script to be split up between different examiners.

That work is underway but, the job ahead of all of us is complex and urgent.

And it cannot be done by taking the ship into dry dock, while a re-fit occurs. We have to make profoundly necessary changes to this system while continuing to deliver an ongoing service.

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Two final points.

Some people have suggested to me that if we successfully deliver A level and GCSE examinations in 2003 and 2004, the steam might go out of any movement to have an English Baccalaureate.

I think that would be a great mistake.

Like you, I will continue to affirm the high standard and international standing of both the GCSE and the A level; I believe that young people taking these qualifications are building their lives on a rock-solid foundation.

But I am also disturbed, as you are, that not enough of our young people are achieving Level 2 or Level 3 qualifications. While there has been some increase, this week's OECD survey shows that we are actually falling behind other countries. The United Kingdom ranks 22 out of 30 countries in terms of the proportion of people 25-34 years of age, who have attained the equivalent of five or more GCSEs at grade C or above.

We have successfully shored up the examinations for 2003; by working together, we are going to achieve the urgent reforms needed to get us there again in 2004 and 2005; but we will fail those children now in primary and lower secondary school unless we achieve fundamental reform in education and training at ages 14-19.

We know that participation in education and training is the key to employment, security, personal welfare, quality of life, standard of living and national development.

Those young people who drop out every year at age 16, do so because school is no longer interesting or relevant.

We also know that the solution will require more than reform in curriculum and qualifications.

It is likely to require substantial reform in the delivery of education and training in schools, in colleges and on the job. It will also need incentives to encourage small and medium business again to take young people into work-place training, with performance assessed and verified on the job on the basis of industry standards.

My final point is to make very clear the role of the regulatory authorities, the role of the examination boards, and the role of government, in relation to standards and student performance.

It is the job of the regulatory authorities to set and maintain the standards; to set the height of the hurdle.

It is the job of the examination boards to examine the performance of students against that standard; to measure and report on whether or not a student clears that hurdle.

It is the job of government, through its support for schools, to seek to increase the number of students clearing the hurdle, and it might do so through setting targets.

Even this year, some commentators have implied that the regulatory authorities and the examination boards have got together to lower standards in some subjects so that government targets are met, or sufficient numbers are seen to pass.

That is not only untrue, but professionally offensive.

There is no pressure from government, either overt or covert, on examination boards or regulatory authorities to contrive a politically convenient result.

There has been no discussion at any time in the past twelve months between regulatory authorities and awarding bodies on the desirable number to pass examinations and statutory tests.

This issue is totally off the agenda; conversation about it would be regarded as compromising and unethical.

The Secretary of State and the Minister for School Standards have always been scrupulous in their dealings with me on this issue. The integrity and authority of the QCA on matters of standards is beyond question; so too is that of the examination boards it regulates.

Were pressure ever brought to bear by any government on this matter, I assure you that, as a matter of principle, I would be the first to make such impropriety public.

I conclude by congratulating you again on a magnificent achievement.

We now have creative and urgent work ahead of us; we have demonstrated that we can perform; and I look forward to working with this grand coalition of professional and dedicated people and organisations, in the interests of the young people we are here to serve.

Ken Boston