Time to Shake up Our Assessment System ?

Louise Hayward, professor of Educational Assessment and Innovation at the University of Glasgow and chairwoman of the Independent Assessment Commission, this week informed Times readers that the Independent Assessment Commission (IAC), which comprises teachers, parents, young people, employers, policymakers, teacher educators and researchers, are seeking to develop principles for a qualification system that delivers Equitable, Reliable Assessment (ERA) . The idea is to inspire a national conversation around England’s qualification system. Some have been arguing that our assessment and qualifications system is no longer fit for purpose. The hiatus caused by the pandemic means that now may be the time for a fundamental rethink ,particularly around the nitty gritty of assessment. I agree. The commission wants ‘ a new ERA for our qualifications system to encourage all young people to learn throughout their personal and professional lives. Enabling a strong, stable and sustainable society where everyone can contribute and make progress and that meets the needs of all young people.
Professor Hayward also asked for help in gathering evidence. So if you are interested contact http://www.neweraassessment.org.uk.
As things stand the current system places a ridiculously high premium on students short term memorisation, while barely acknowledging the need for critical thinking or collaborative work to problem solve, a requirement out there in the real world. The system also elevates the importance of summative assessment above formative assessment, although, arguably, the latter is more valuable to both teacher and student ,enabling teaching and learning to be be adjusted continuously. The ability to get the best out of yourself and others, in a collaborative environment, is not valued, let alone assessed. We know that a scaffold of core knowledge and concepts is required by all students to problem solve and progress in education , but a better balance can be struck . After formal education our young people have to work , not in isolation, but with others and with constant access to changing information. It is essential, therefore, that the future accountability and assessment frameworks properly reflect this . So lets get on with it!

DIPLOMAS- IN NEED OF A BIT OF LOVE

But what are they for?

 Comment

 In giving evidence to the Children, Schools and Families Select Committee on testing and assessment in 2008, Greg Watson of the exam board the OCR described the Diplomas as “the most complicated qualification that I have ever seen”. Few in the loop would disagree.

The bad news is that it could get worse.

 Apart from their unnecessary complexity, and the confusion and bureaucracy engendered by these qualifications, there is a conceptual problem too.

What exactly are they for? It’s a rather obvious question, I know, but rather too many stakeholders seem unconvinced that this is a question that has ever been fully answered.

The back-story tells us quite a lot. The Diploma grew out of a compromise offer following the rejection by Ruth Kelly of the full long- awaited Tomlinson proposals. It was therefore a sop to the many who supported his full, initial proposals. So it was essentially a political compromise stitched together, in short order, rather than the child of evidence -led policymaking. So we now have a hybrid, or to put it another way a fudge, which nobody seems to have asked for. What demand are they seeking to meet?

Diplomas have got to offer something different than the current academic and vocational qualifications otherwise what on earth is the point? What exactly do they offer that’s so different ? Alan Johnson when he was Education Secretary in 2007 in a fit of candour told an Association of School and College Leaders conference that there was a risk that new practical and academic Diplomas could be seen as second-best. He suggested this was because they would run alongside GCSEs and A-levels. Quite. Employers and top universities were never likely to treat it as equal to academic A-levels, no matter what those marketing the diploma were going to claim.

 If Diplomas are meant to be a combination of academic and vocational routes, why do they share such a significant overlap with existing vocational qualifications? Policy Exchange argued ,in a recent pamphlet, that a case can be put for a set of qualifications that focus specifically on subjects that combine a mixture of academic study and vocational training, such as Engineering. However, for more vocational subjects like Construction and the Built Environment the authors ask why develop a qualification that requires spending such a huge amount of time in a classroom rather than in the workplace (in contrast with the NVQ of the same name that has a much stronger vocational element)? Not only does this look to be strange practice, it will be extremely unappealing to those pupils whom the Government is specifically targeting to stay on in the system post 16.( A worthy aim by the way). Many of these de-motivated pupils, who may be in danger of joining the NEET cohort, want to escape classroom theorising in favour of more accessible practical training.

But the Diploma , while envisaging the minimum of ten days work experience as part of the course, does not even insist for this be related to the subject being studied, meaning that a student could pass a Diploma in Construction and the Built Environment without ever having set foot on a building site.

In April, the exam boards sent a letter to Ed Balls warning him that introducing the academic diplomas (which the Tories are committed to dropping and which have been criticised by the CBI) too quickly will destroy their “standards and quality” and leave them potentially valueless to universities and employers.

Professor Adrian Smith, one of the most senior education civil servants, described the new science diploma as a “slightly schizophrenic” concept that tries to challenge A-levels while offering work-based learning.

Professor Smith in an unguarded moment had let the cat out of the bag. The Diploma qualification is schizophrenic’ and so will always have a struggle on its hands to establish itself as a robust qualification, aimed at supplanting the A level.