Another Concrete Ceiling
The latest study from Warwick University makes for interesting reading.
Researchers have uncovered evidence that teachers are routinely under-estimating the abilities of some black pupils, suggesting that assumptions about behavioural problems are overshadowing their academic talents.
The thrust of the research is that the abilities of black pupils are widely underestimated, resulting in their being entered for lower tier examinations.
Rather than a solution that might ameliorate elements of this issue, I have a bolder idea:
Get rid of the two-tier exam system.
Some people may think now that I have suddenly made a radical shift to the left of Labour with that statement, or am engaging in some bizarre piece of triangulation. After all, the present belief of Labour ministers is that we do not have a two-tier education system. This however ignores the simple reality that exams are literally divided into two tiers, imposing collars and caps on the grades a pupil may achieve before they have even put their pen to paper.
At GCSE, in Foundation Tier, a pupil is limited to the grade range of C-G, while a Higher Tier pupil may receive marks from A*-D (with the occasional E).
What surer way to kill the ambition of somebody than to put them on the lower tier, effectively imposing a ceiling on their achievement and telling them that they can rise no higher than a certain grade? What harm is there in offering a standardised form of the test that challenges everybody’s ability equally?
I am not naive enough to believe that this would necessarily result in a seismic shift in exam results. Nor am I suggesting that differentiation between levels of ability is per se, a bad thing. But splitting the exams into two tiers effectively preordains a result unnecessarily. Rather than the subjective judgement of the teacher, why not let the relative objectivity of the exam be the judge of the pupil’s ability?
Teaching to a grade may be an effective and realistic form of education, but why impose an arbitrary limit? If a pupil is particularly bright in his set, why not allow him to scrape a B, rather than limiting him to a C?
We are supposed to promote equality of opportunity. Two-tier exams promote the opposite. It’s time we got rid of them.
Sphere: Related Content
