To be fair, we can do better than exams

Ministers’ clamour to return to our pre-pandemic exams system is founded on an impoverished idea of fairness, writes Jo-Anne Baird

Schools Minister, Nick Gibb, said on a BBC interview yesterday that comparing this year’s GCSE results with pre-pandemic outcomes was like comparing apples and oranges. He also believes that exams are the fairest and best way to assess. But what evidence is there for that statement?

The logic that exams are fairest comes from the notion that everyone sits the same question papers under the same conditions. Everyone has a fair shot to achieve, with results based on merit.

Except, this is only one definition of fairness, and the meritocratic worldview it’s based on is clearly flawed. When people can pay for a better education, or have more privileged educational experiences because they are wealthier, exam results reflect that.

The pandemic has thrown into stark relief the different educational experiences young people can expect. Nearly one third of private schools provided four or more lessons a day during the first lockdown, but only 2 per cent of state schools were able to do the same. Sitting the same exam would not come close to sorting out this level of unfairness. These experiences only exacerbate existing inequalities.

A different definition of fairness would entail openness to diversity

A different definition of fairness would entail openness to diversity and allowing for different ways of achieving the required standards. It might even allow people to work hard, try again and re-sit assessments, perhaps in a modular fashion for some subjects. It might also mean more variety in the qualifications diet, such as more vocational qualifications that equip young people with the skills to go onto employment in sorely needed sectors such as plumbing, IT or healthcare.

Exams are good for selection. They can be designed to discriminate between pupils, to give them a rank-order. But there are big question marks over whether this is a sensible primary function of our school qualification system.

Introduced in 1988, GCSEs were the school-leaving exams. But that is no longer the case. Young people now stay in education and training until age 18, so allocation to courses at the next level could be handled differently.

Equally, many universities have entrance exams in specific subjects. A-levels – the new de facto school-leaving exams – have not fulfilled the selective function for quite some time.

It’s time for a rethink. This is why I have joined the National Education Union’s Independent Assessment Commission, which reports in the autumn on principles for a new assessment system. We are seeking a new ERA – an equitable and reliable assessment system.

During the pandemic, it was teacher professionalism that saw the qualifications system right. They put in the extra hours to make sure the results were as fair as possible and based upon evidence. We should be investing in that professionalism for the future. This year’s TAGs certainly proved onerous, but with the right design and a proper consideration of workload, new forms of assessment could be made manageable.

Sadly, the current Initial Teacher Training Market Review proposals do nothing to promote teacher professionalism. If we want a high-stakes assessment system that is fit for purpose, it will have to rely on having the best teachers to make it work, and that means they will need to understand assessment. So rather than an isolated review of teacher training, what we need is a forward-looking review of our qualification system as a whole, which may well include exams.

There has been a welcome stability in our qualifications system for a few years, but it is time to re-evaluate and build a better one – one in which technology plays a larger role, at the very least.

If our qualification system is to embrace the diverse needs of modern Britain and embody a wider form of fairness than Nick Gibb’s proposition, we need to recognise that exams are not the only fruit.