Dumbing down
Our government consistently tells us of the rise in standards in our schools. Of course, this is clearly evidenced by the increase of numbers achieving higher grades at GCSE and A level examinations.
Clearly.
As one of the students who took the new style of AS and A2 examinations in 2002, I can categorically say that they are easier than the A levels that they replaced. I can prove this both anecdotally and, more importantly for our politicians, logically:
The new AS levels were meant to be half way between GCSEs and A levels, while the A2 exams would be the equivalent level to the old A levels. Now, please correct me if I am wrong, but if instead of studying at A level standard for two years students study at that level for one, their degree of knowledge, and expertise is logically going to be lower - they will have studied and learnt less.
If I may, I would like to put this discussion into a context; I don’t believe examinations to be a good way of assessing one’s grasp of a subject. However, I am yet to discover a better way for employers to distinguish between those who ‘can’ and those who ‘can’t’ speak French, for example.
In actual fact, I happen to think that foreign language exams are one of the few ‘good’ ‘real-life’ tests sat by students in schools today. In my opinion they recreate real-life situations far better than other exams - one goes through exactly the same emotions when asked ‘Was machst du in dein Freizeit?‘ in a German oral exam as they do when they try to ask for a railway ticket in Berlin. Why our standard-raising government wants to abolish oral examinations, then, is absolutely beyond me.
Having taught teenagers (and, I may add, from self-analysis!) I know that making exams easier doesn’t only allow students to get higher marks. It also allows them to do ‘OK’ by doing far less.
Should we not, if anything, be making exams harder and pushing students rather than allowing a generation of people who by trundling along know very little, unlike those who may have got Cs or Ds in the old A levels, yet worked very hard to get them, and achieved a great deal more than a B student of today?