Seems Even the Examined Life Is Not Worth Living

nick cowen, 9 September 2008

During the last ten years, the Westminster Government has permitted and then forbidden schoolchildren to use calculators in examinations no fewer than seven times.
If one single statistic could be said to reveal just how ill-equipped government is to make detailed decisions about such educational matters, this statistic surely is it.
It was cited by the chief executive of Europe’s largest assessment agency, Cambridge Assessment, to illustrate government’s incompetence in its domain.
He is also reported to have said that growing political interference in the assessment process has so served to discredit the GCSE qualification in the eyes of the public that they are increasingly turning to new, more reliable modes of assessment, such as the International Baccalaureate, that have escaped governmental interference … so far.

Coda:
No sooner do I post about the over-interference by government in education than we read in the following day’s Times that a House of Lords of Lords committee is to investigate whether schools are being hindered by too much government interference.
The House of Lords enquiry follows the disclosure that, within just one single month, the DCSF issued no fewer than 30 statutory instruments, including 12 orders revising the National Curriculum. During the last Parliament, this government department issued more statutory instruments than any other.
Hot damn!, as Rush Limbaugh might say.