13.2.10

Even the International Baccalaureate does it!

Following my recent perorations on the subject of GCSE and A Level Examiners abusing their positions as Examiners for personal and private financial reward at the expense of honesty, integrity and professionalism, I have been persuaded to ask the International Baccalaureate Organisation what their position is in this respect. After all, last week I found an IB Examiner offering his services in the UK in the same way that GCSE and A Level Examiners are doing.

Here is the letter I have just sent to the IB organisation in Switzerland:

Dear Sirs,

I noticed on a web site for a revision programme in the UK last week that IB examiners are offering their services as private tutors to candidates for your up and coming examinations.

That is, the people who are possibly setting but certainly marking candidates’ papers are teaching those very candidates how to pass the examination that they as examiners are directly involved with.

As a parent I am really concerned that anyone who is prepared to pay the examiners will benefit directly from their expertise and tips whilst anyone who does not or cannot pay, gets nothing.

What is the IB’s policy on this matter, please?

Yours etc

DW

12.2.10

Beware the Hob Nob

Be careful when singing along to a powerful song while eating a Hob Nob biscuit.

There's my first top tip in a very long time!

DW

9.2.10

A Levels are up for sale: part 3

If you are following this debate you will know that I wrote to Ed Balls of the UK government and was fobbed off by one of his minions. So I wrote an open letter to Balls and a follow up letter to the minion. Both of those letters can be found in this blog.

I let sleeping dogs lie for a few days and then did a bit of research. I was told that the Gordon Brown government and the Examinations Boards all have what they call "thorough systems" in place to stop what I am saying is happening: GCSE and A Level examiners teaching students how to pass their own exams in return for money.

This means that if you are prepared to pay an examiner to tell you or your child how to pass the examination that they might have set and might be marking, they will do that for you. In private. Behind closed doors. For the privileged few.

So, I tested these "thorough systems" by carrying out a simple google search ... here is a letter I have just sent off to Balls' minion:

Dear Helen,

I am well aware that you will soon simply consign my responses to your delete button. However, before you do that let me just demonstrate how ineffective your “thorough systems” really are. I have just taken a random sweep via a google search query through just a few Easter 2010 revision courses for GCSE and A Levels. I also included the International Baccalaureate for my own curiosity to see how widespread the examiner money grabbing mentality might be: I found what I expected to find but since you are probably not interested in the IB, I have not included my research results here for you.

1 Here is a page from the very FIRST revision course web site that I looked at: http://www.justincraig.ac.uk/easter_revision.php Scroll down the page and find this:

Guidance from the tutors, many of whom are examiners, on best practise exam technique

Did you see that? ... many of whom are examiners ...

It is a major selling point that some of the tutors on these courses are examiners.

2 Now from the fourth revision web site I visited: http://www.abbeycambridge.co.uk/subjects/easter-revision/index.aspx?pageid={4bd18459-3956-460f-9181-4fb073e57ae1}&tsi=1

Why attend Easter Revision?
... Most of out (sic) tutors hold further degrees; moreover, some of them are examiners in their subject.
Our courses aim to help you master examination technique and boost your subject knowledge.

Did you spot that: some of them are examiners in their subject ... and then they reinforced that by saying: Our courses aim to help you master examination technique and boost your subject knowledge.

3 Then there is the fifth revision web site I went to: http://www.mpw.co.uk/camb/easter-revision.asp?scW=1024

Here they say:

Our tutors are highly-qualified graduates whose experience at MPW has trained them to be particularly adept at building students’ confidence quickly and efficiently. Many are GCSE and A level examiners and are therefore attuned to the requirements and approaches of the various examination boards.

I don’t need to go on do I Helen as I have shown from a small sample that 60% of the providers of revision courses are using examiners as their face to face, behind closed doors, for personal and private financial reward, tutors. So, people who are prepared to pay for the privilege get access to the very people who may have set and could well be marking their own, their very own, examination scripts.

I don’t intend to give you any get out clauses here Helen and I do expect you to do something other than fob me off as you did with your original email last week.

What is happening is happening in spite of your supposed “thorough systems” and in spite of the Examination Boards’ protestations that it is not happening. One day this campaign that I am part of will hit home with a minister, MP or civil servant who will finally see that our GCSE and A Level system is rotten from the core. When that day comes, I sincerely hope that the many people who have been party to fobbing off the likes of me will resign en masse.

Best wishes

DW

PS Chris Sivewright has been working on this campaign, to stop this inner rot, for even longer than I have. He chided me the other day as you might have seen by telling me to acknowledge the work of others. Fair point Chris and in my defence I told him that because of the work I do and the location of where I do it, I am largely working on my part of this in isolation and things happen as they happen. Whilst I wish I were part of a fully coordinated campaign I cannot be. I am glad, though, every now and again to tell people that I am not the only person fighting this campaign. In fact, thousands and thousands of people are ... whether actively or passively!

A Level Bunkum II

Following on from my open letter to Ed Balls (Secretary of State in the Gordon Brown Cabinet, one of whose tasks is to safeguard the UK's education system) I sent a follow up the following day to the poor minion who had been given the task of fobbing me off. Here is that response:

Dear Helen,

I have probably failed again with my previous and relatively extensive response to your email so here is the shortened version that really, really ought to make someone in Whitehall sit up and listen:

Principal, senior and other examiners for GCSE and A Level exams present revision sessions and seminars for personal and private financial reward. These sessions are usually held behind closed doors. The audience very commonly, though not exclusively, comprises candidates for the examinations for which the examiner is responsible. Why do these candidates PAY examiners to run these seminars? I wonder!

That this happens is a FACT. That your “thorough systems” are allowing it to happen is a FACT. For goodness’ sake can you get someone to stop this charade? Other examining bodies simply do not allow their examiners anywhere near their candidates and for very good reason.

Only in British schools is such a system allowed whereby the privileged few who are prepared to pay can be given unfettered access to the very people who have set and will mark and moderate the exam for which they are about to sit. If you can’t or won’t pay, you are excluded. This charade even transcends the supposed State School v Public School divide.

Helen: is that fair? Is that democratic? Is this a transparent and acceptable system? Or is it, rather, corrupt, unprofessional, demeaning and out of control?

I have spoken to a great many people on this issue and the ONLY people who are prepared to defend it are the very ones who are in a position to do something about it: you and your colleagues in Whitehall. Isn’t that very odd?

I really do expect someone rational to be given the task of resolving this issue and I have already passed along this latest correspondence to a senior educational journalist who has been following this story for several years now.

Best wishes

DW

(Watch out for the next posting ... part three)