On this page: Background | Summary of exam trends

Background

Academic standards, particularly in national examinations, have become a fraught topic in recent years. External examinations have always been associated with a challenging time for young people who have been required to demonstrate their abilities in a high-pressure environment. This scenario, despite the increasing use of assessed coursework instead of examinations, still looms large in many young people's lives.

But this is not the only sort of pressure applied to exams. The government now uses the nation's exam results as a measure of policy success while the same instruments are used to judge the performance of teachers and rank schools in league tables. The government's widely publicised target that 50 per cent of young people should go onto further education increases the demand for the education system to produce students with good grades. This means that good grades are required not only for individual student success, but also to justify the direction of government policy.

The problem with this situation is that government has both the power and the incentive to influence the exam system. This includes how they are marked and graded but, more importantly, the curriculum students will have to study to take the exams. When politicians demand annual increases in good grades, they will be supplied but not necessarily by improving student performance.

Due to the complexity of the exam system and the frequent changes in course content, this only becomes apparent by comparing independent measures of achievement against official examinations. When we look at these independent studies the results can be quite staggering and paint a bleak picture of young people going into the workplace with impressive qualifications but still lacking basic skills.

This takes place in a context where young people are working very hard towards goals that they have been told will improve their life chances. So the government deflects any challenge to this situation by shielding themselves behind the feelings of pupils and teachers. Ed Balls, secretary of state for children, schools and families, claimed in August 2007: 'It is an annual ritual for some education commentators to claim that our exam results are evidence of grade inflation and "dumbing down". This is demoralising for teachers and insulting for students who have worked hard all year.'

What this disingenuous argument fails to recognise is that no one in this debate doubts the potential of pupils or the efforts of teachers. On the contrary, the challenge is against government policies that fail to properly realise either those efforts or potentials. Our contention is that so long as government is involved in setting exams, their interest in improving their results will tend to push standards of education down, damaging the real prospects of our children and young people.

• See the report Artificial Achievement (PDF) for information and external references for results at key stage 2, GCSE and A-level.

Summary of the latest trends

Key stage 2 SATS (end of Primary school)

In 1997, only 63% of pupils at Key stage 2 (age 11, final year of primary school) managed to achieve level 4 in the literacy SATS tests and only 62% in the numeracy SATS.

By 2006, these figures were 79% and 76% respectively. But independent tests carried out at the University of Durham annually since 1997 found no evidence of a rise in literacy levels. To achieve the expected level (level 4) in the 2006 Key Stage 2 literacy SATS papers, pupils were required to accrue just 43 points out of 100. In the 2006 Key Stage 2 numeracy SATs papers, a level 4 pass needed only 46 points out of 100.

See our briefing Faking It for more information on Key Stage 2 results.

GCSE

In 1997, 46.3% of GCSE students achieved 5 or more A*-C grades while 6.6% had no passes. By 2006 58.5% of pupils achieved 5 or more grades A*-C, while only 2.2% did not achieve any passes.

But when English and maths were included in the five, fewer than half of pupils (45.8%) qualified. Hence, 21.7% of pupils who managed to obtain what counts as five 'good' GCSEs did so without having reasonable knowledge of maths and English.

Dr Robert Coe of Durham University used independent data to show how this allowed pupils of similar standards to achieve different results over the years. A student who scored 45 (just below the average) on the YELLIS test could expect to achieve D grades in French, Maths and History at GCSE in 1996, but by 2005 would be receiving C grades; enough to push a number of students into achieving the 5 grades at A*-C government 'benchmark'. Taking an average of 26 subjects, pupils of the same YELLIS standard could generally expect to achieve around half a grade higher in 2005 than they could in 1996.

In other words when the government claims that over half of pupils now achieve the expected standard, this is because the standard has shifted to include those that did not reach the same level in previous years.

A-Levels

In 1997, 87.2 per cent of A-level entries were passes. By 2006, this was the case for 97.2 per cent of the entries. The percentage of A grades rocketed from 16.1 per cent to 24 per cent.

Robert Coe of Durham University’s CEM used the International Test of Developed Abilities to compare the actual attainment of pupils from year to year with their paper qualifications. Taking an average of 40 A-level subjects, he found that those scoring 50% on the ITDA test in 1997 would tend to achieve low C grades, but by 2005 were achieving low B grades. Essentially a post- Blair A-level is worth a whole grade less than a pre-Blair A-level. See graph below:

Source: Changes in standards at GCSE and A-Level: Evidence from ALIS and YELLIS, Coe, R., CEM Centre, Durham University, April 2007

From 1997 to 2006, the number of A-level entries has increased by over 50,000. However, this increase has not been reflected in traditional subjects. In fact, many have declining numbers of entries: physics, French, German and mathematics have all registered reductions of between 3,000 and 10,000 over the last decade. By contrast, psychology has increased by 26,000; Media & Film Studies by 14,000; ICT by 12,000 and PE by nearly 10,000. This is not just a case of students choosing easier subjects for themselves. Schools have been discouraging pupils from taking subjects that are deemed more challenging and are therefore less 'safe' an option for league table purposes.

See the report The Results Generation (PDF) for the latest information on A-level grade inflation.