Grade Inflation

The annual ritual occurs again. Photogenic young girls are photographed in staged scenes of jubilation. People discover their academic future, the number of A grades increases, and a political tug-of-war ensues.

The dividing lines on this debate adopt a degree of pantomime. Seeing grades go up once again, people question whether the papers have got easier, the marking more lenient, or the grades less meaningful. The opposite side simply try to disparage the motives of those asking the questions, rather than bothering to answer them.

This is not to disparage the hard work of those who do indeed deserve their results. Sonething, however, is clearly wrong in our exam system. I write here as someone who has sat exams every year for the last eight years, and will hopefully be done with them by 2011 (this breaks down into sitting at least one GCSE per year for the first three years of school, exams for three years of my BA, and a further two years of exams at law school). I have also been fortunate enough to meet several chief examiners, employers and admissions tutors.

Grade inflation is not a press invention. The fact that the average number of A grades awarded at A level increases year on year should be enough of a clue. If it were an absolute measure of ability there would be much greater fluctuation in average awards.

This inflation is not, as far as I’m aware, explicit policy. Rather it is the implicit result of government practice. Should average grades fall in a given year, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA), the public body that regulates the exam boards, forces the relevant exam board to go through a costly and time-consuming audit of its work. This disincentivises marking pupils down, and results in a tacit, creeping inflation.

At GCSE level in particular, this pernicious influence is obvious. I remember sitting a Chemistry GCSE in which numerous questions, and thus marks awarded, had absolutely nothing at all to do with science.

The A Level has become unfit for purpose. The A grade is useless as a measure of academic ability if it is being awarded to over a quarter of those who sit the exams.

Although such inflation might be considered a form o legitimate social engineering, as Baron Mandelson suggested, it only ends up hurting people from disadvantaged backgrounds. When A Levels lose their rigour, admissions tutors have to look elsewhere to select between applicants. They can no longer determine academic ability, so look at things like interview technique, extracurricular activities, and intangible qualities of character. In all of these, students from privileged backgrounds have a massive head start on their peers. Cheap A grades make it impossible to properly differentiate between the spoonfed-but-dim with lots of after-school clubs and massive self-confidence, and the brighter-but-unfortunate applicant whose school lacks good facilities or contact. They get he same grades, but one will fare better at clearing the other hurdles. Grade inflation is the best friend of the privileged idiot.

Tagged as: A Levels, Exams, GCSEs, grade inflation, university