Want to gain an unfair advantage in your GCSE and A Level Examinations here in the UK? It’s official now, you can pay a Chief Examiner to come to help you to pass his/her examination.
I have been in correspondence with two MPs over the last three or four years and the upshot is that they have told me that it is official UK Government policy to allow Chief and other examiners to sell their services to anyone for personal private gain.
This means that these examiners can hold private revision sessions with anyone who is about to take one of their examinations.
Imagine the luxury and advantage: the very person in charge of your exam will tell you exactly what you need to do in order to pass his/her exam. Don’t worry, it’s all done behind closed doors and all you have to do is to pay the examiner a fee.
What happens if you can’t afford to pay? Sorry, you’re on your own.
Never mind, Gordon Brown and Tony Blair before him, have presided over this system for years now. The two MPs I have been writing to are Evan Harris, Lib Dem MP for Oxford West and Abingdon and Linda Riordan, Labour MP for Halifax. The final approval for this elitist system came from Sarah McCarthy Fry who is a Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Schools and Learners.
My view of this system? In the letter I have just sent to Mrs Riordan I say this:
On behalf of honest and hard working teachers, parents and pupils I feel unable to support any government, any MP and any examinations system that essentially is supporting the following approach:
- Elitism in education:
- Exclusivity in education;
- Encouraging examiners to work ex officio for personal private gain;
- Encouraging students and candidates for examination to expect that they may meet examiners for their chosen subjects for personal private directed guidance in order to gain an advantage in an examination;
- Cheating;
- Immoral behaviour;
- Unprofessional behaviour.
It is obvious that there is nothing more for me to say to you on this matter since it is clear that the government is fostering lower and lower standards. Moreover Secretaries of State, Under Secretaries of State, Members of Parliament and those in a position to gain financially from this situation are all quite happy to ensure that the privileged few who can afford to pay will receive a better standard of preparation for an examination than those who can't I cannot see the socialist approach in this system.
While the standard of UK examinations and so on plummet, you are perfectly free to buy your way through the examinations system. I wonder how many people think this is a good approach to end of compulsory education and pre university examinations? I wonder how many people believe that the UK’s schools examination system is now of third world standard? A Professor of an overseas University said that to me, by the way, on hearing about my campaign.
Shocking!
DW
No comments:
Post a Comment