Managing and Interfering

Nick Edwards has written a very engaging autobiography that I recommend everyone to read.

Edwards is a doctor in an A&E department at a General Hospital somewhere in the UK. The book discusses two main themes:

medical stories
management and interference stories

I enjoyed the book and reviewed it in full for my own web site: http://www.duncanwil.co.uk/book_reviews/edw.html

DW

What I have been up to!

Those of you who see me on Facebook and Twitter know that after a week at work in Dubai I have spent almost two weeks in the Far East: Cambodia, Singapore and Bangkok. I am in Bangkok now and will fly out of here tonight to go home via Dubai: Airbus A380 all the way to Manchester.

Anyway, here are some links to two slideshows I have put together for you: one shows me at work in the kitchen, cooking Khmer food, in Siem Reap; and the other shows snaps I took in Singapore.

Enjoy them and all feedback is gratefully received.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjTPQxmCha4&feature=youtu.be

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84dIBPHj1zQ&feature=youtu.be

DW

What a (Little) Gentleman!

The wallpaper on my iPad is of the new Bentley V8 superb looking vehicle: that really is a lottery win dream. Here is that photo, courtesy of those awfully nice Bentley people themselves!

Anyway, as I was returning to my room at the hotel, I saw a massive Bentley outside of the back entrance. There were a few people milling around, including the driver, who was wearing a baseball cap!

A tiny man, all dressed in white but with a significantly bald head, walked slowly towards the car with his hands behind his back and his head semi bowed down. The driver opened the back door for the man who almost vanished inside that cavernous vehicle as he climbed inside.

Behind this man was a woman of the same height, wearing a sari: she was following the man fairly closely and as he climbed into the car she stopped. She was waiting for the man to move over to let her in: he didn’t. Dignity maintained, as her halt was fleeting, she quickly changed her direction and went round the back of the car and the driver opened the rear door on the other side of the car to let her in.

Man and woman were now ensconced and the driver went round the car again, to get into the driving seat.

A young man and woman were now left on the pavement and clearly they were confused as the young woman made a move as if to open the driver’s door but she also halted fleetingly before she changed direction and the couple started to walk away.

At this point I heard myself say, what a shitty little man, a shitty little man; and left the scene to return to my room.

Lovely car, though!

As I was in the lift a memory came flooding back of a situation that arose in Almaty back in 1998/99. We had arrived there in August 1998 and after a whole term of living in a dormitory, we were given some hope of moving out into the community and living in our own flats or houses.

We were asked to describe our hopes and aspirations for the housing we were asking for and one of our team wrote the most inappropriate list of demands one could ever imagine. We were in post Soviet Kazakhstan where the majority of the population didn’t have two ha’pennies to rub together; flats and houses were often dangerously badly built; as many as three and even four generations of families shared one flat; and the furniture was Soviet utility style and standard.

Apart from tiger skin rugs, Italianate furniture and bath fittings, this colleague, also a small man, asked for a king sized bed with some outrageous bedding and a duck down duvet! This latter request led me to make a drawing of the impact of this request having been granted.

As a matter of interest, I last saw this man in 2003 when he left our project and I heard nothing about him until late last year, 2011, when I saw him on one of the social networking sites and he had written this astonishing plea: la la la, I am looking for work but have been unemployed for two and a half years … Well, this man is the best part of 80 years old now so fair play to him that he might be capable of working. However, trying to generate sympathy as a reason for giving someone a job is not the best of strategies in my book. 




DW

Cheating Examiners: a GLIMMER of hope?

In addition to my earlier post, http://duncanwil.blogspot.com/2012/01/cheating-examiners-another-secretary-of.html, I am a little encouraged by some of the correspondence I have seen over this matter.

Sec of State Gove’s speech, linked to in my post, is so badly littered with literary allusions as to make it unreadable. The other two letters mention education assessment markets, textbooks and other forms of communicating with teachers and students. As long as honest and independent people are allowed into this debate there might be some hope.

However, given the history of this debate I am really wary of the vested interests that litter the education market now and that are bound to cause problems for us all.

DW

Reminder of those letters:

http://media.education.gov.uk/assets/files/pdf/l/letter%20to%20ministers%20from%20glenys%20stacey%20-%2028%20nov%202011.pdf

http://media.education.gov.uk/assets/files/michael%20gove%20letter%20to%20glenys%20stacey.pdf

Cheating Examiners: ANOTHER Secretary of State fobs me off!

In December 2011, I wrote to Secretary of State Michael Gove, among others, on the subject of the role and responsibilities of GCSE and A Level Examiners. I simply pointed out that abuse of position is well known and has been going on for years. Moreover, I told him that I had told him this before.

I got a response on 29th December 2011 that told me that Sec of State Gove is too busy to write to me but a minion has been delegated to write to me … here is Mr Haynes’ reply (don’t you just love the century’s old Mr Haynes!!)

--oo0oo--

Dear Mr Williamson

Thank you for your email of 11 December, addressed to the Secretary of State, about alleged exam malpractice. As you will appreciate, the recent media coverage has generated a considerable amount of correspondence and the Secretary of State is therefore unable to reply personally. It is for this reason I have been asked reply.

Ministers have always been committed to significant reforms of the exams system. To restore standards and faith in the system, Ministers have already:

• legislated so that the exams regulator, Ofqual will be able to fine exam boards
• legislated to give Ofqual freedom to raise the standard of qualifications; and
• reformed the performance table system for schools, so that only performance in the most valuable qualifications for young people will count. 

More recently, the Secretary of State commissioned Ofqual to conduct an urgent inquiry into the allegations over the exam system in the Daily Telegraph. The Secretary of State welcomed Ofqual’s initial report that was published on 21 December and the actions they have in hand to repair the damage the revelations have done to the reputation of exams. Details of Ofqual’s report and the Secretary of State’s response can be found at: http://www.education.gov.uk/inthenews/inthenews/a00201221/michael-gove-letter-to-ofqual

You may also be interested in the statements I have included below, from Ministers, setting out their views over the need for urgent reform of the exam system. 

• In an interview in The Times in June, the Secretary of State declared that one of his chief aims as  Education Secretary was to ‘change our discredited exam system’.
• The Secretary of State gave a speech at the Standards Summit convened by the qualifications regulator, Ofqual on 13 October – seehttp://www.education.gov.uk/inthenews/speeches/a00199197/michael-gove-to-ofqual-standards-summit
  He spoke about a range of issues over standards including the risk of a ‘race to the bottom’: 'It’s important that collectively we recognise that exam boards and awarding bodies, in the natural and healthy desire to be the best as an exam board, don’t succumb to the commercial temptation to elbow others out of the way, by saying to schools and to others “we provide an easier route to more passes than others.”'
• In an exchange of letters between the Schools Minister and Ofqual on 29 November – see http://www.ofqual.gov.uk/news-and-announcements/128/807- the Minister highlighted the following: ‘In our view, the chief risk of market failure with qualifications, particularly pre-19 qualifications, is in relation to standards – the so called ‘race to the bottom’. The nature of competition seems to present significant risks of awarding bodies producing more accessible specifications, with content which is less intrinsically challenging, in order to capture market share’. And, in relation to awarding bodies being involved in the publication of textbooks, ‘To protect public confidence in the system and to manage conflicts of interest effectively, we need the highest possible ethical standards, combined with a fully transparent system.’
• The Secretary of State’s initial statement about the exams system in the light of the recent Daily Telegraph articles – see http://www.education.gov.uk/a00200596/michael-gove-responds-to-the-daily-telegraph-investigation - included the following: “Our exams system needs fundamental reform. [These] revelations confirm that the current system is discredited. … As I have always maintained, it is crucial our exams hold their own with the best in the world. We will take whatever action is necessary to restore faith in our exam system. Nothing is off the table.”

You may be aware that changes to GCSEs are being introduced. The following link provides information:

http://www.ofqual.gov.uk/news-and-announcements/130-news-and-announcements-press-releases/820-ofqual-confirms-changes-to-gcses

Thank you for taking the time to write with your comments and concerns.
Yours sincerely

Mr G. Haynes
Public Communications Unit
www.education.gov.uk

As part of our commitment to improving the service we provide to our customers, we are interested in hearing your views and would welcome your comments via our website at www.education.gov.uk/pcusurvey

Your correspondence has been allocated the reference number 2011/0083207. To contact the Department for Education, please visit www.education.gov.uk/contactus

Cheating Examiners: letter to JCQ

Here is the text of a letter I have just sent by email to Dr Jim Sinclair, Director of JCQ:

Dear Dr Sinclair,

I read your report, A preliminary report to the Secretary of State for Education on allegations made in the Daily Telegraph; and I have to say it is a complete waste of time. I am saddened that it seems to me that we are going through another round of discussions in which everyone knows that there are significant irregularities in the system and yet because of vested interests, no one feels able to do anything about them. The only crumb of comfort in your report is that it says it is a preliminary report.

I am just hoping that in spite of Mr Gove already having been informed about the problems latterly raised by the Daily Telegraph and already having ignored them, things will change this time.

I have been working on this problem for several years now and have provided reams and reams of proof of misdeeds. One day, someone of integrity will take note of my findings and the findings of others and take the appropriate action. So far, you have proven that you are not that person.

Best wishes for the new year

Duncan Williamson

Daughter Fran, an inspiration to us all!

Take a look at my daughter Fran’s Blog: she just posted a bit about what she has achieved in 2011. Mind boggling!

What Fran can do with an unbroken spirit inside her broken body should put all moaning minnies to shame.

DW

Happy New Year

Welcome to all of my visitors, both to this blog and my web sites.

I hope 2012 turns out to be a good year for you, in every way.

I normally don't single out anyone or anything for special new year wishes but this year I will make an exception.

After spending almost two years in Afghanistan I came to meet and work with a lot of people who give me hope for their future. Then again, I met and worked with some people whose vision and objectives for their country are difficult to fathom.

We worked in the education sector and made a difference to the lives of thousands of young people and their families.

Driving across Kabul on a daily basis showed me that ordinary Afghans would do what they had to do to survive: from opening and managing small businesses to selling family heirlooms and to begging.

The big men in their massive and expensive houses are far removed from the lives of the people of Afghanistan. Political cowards who take decisions on the basis of the last person to see them ruin the work of the government.

People like William Hague and Hillary Clinton and their kind are the wrong people to help to oversee the changes needed to be made to help Afghanistan. I say this because these people are top down politicians and Afghanistan needs bottom up thinkers and managers.

Give the good people of Afghanistan the chance to live honourable and safe lives.

DW

Here you are, a few snaps after my two weeks away

Dubai and Kuala Lumpur: December 2011

DW

Hogwash personified ... Cheating Examiners

All nightmares confirmed. Ofqual has responded to Gove's, Secretary of State, demand for a review of cheating examiners. Read the hogwash response they have published.

http://www.ofqual.gov.uk/news-and-announcements/130-news-and-announcements-press-releases/833-ofqual-publishes-exam-errors-report-and-update-on-investigation-into-exam-board-seminars

It's tripe.

DW

Remember this M Chirac?

Chirac has been found guilty of dodgy doings from many years ago! He was protected from prosecution by being President of France for many years.

He was then tried in absentia because he claimed to be suffering from mental illness of some kind, including memory loss.

How convenient! Lower level people are forced to suffer the natural indignity of a trial if necessary: why not you?

Just having my say!

DW

Cheating Examiners: my letter to the Education Select Committee

Last night I wrote to the House of Commons Education Select Committee: they are to hold a meeting on the subject of the cheating examiner problem that has just been highlighted by the Daily Telegraph.

This is a lengthy letter but it is a good summary for them.

At the time of writing I have had neither response nor acknowledgement from them.

I wrote the letter relatively quickly so please forgive me for any errors that have crept into it.

DW

By email: see distribution list below

11^th December 2011

Dear Sirs           Allegations relating to GCSE and A Level Examiners

It both causes me sadness and gives me great pleasure to be able to write this letter to your committee. The sadness comes from the seriousness of the allegations being made against the various GCSE and A Level examiners that are the subject of your special meeting to be held on Tuesday 13^th December 2011. The pleasure comes from being able to provide you with significant information that will help you to appreciate that a lot of people have known about the allegations for many years but that they have chosen to ignore the allegations.

I have been researching and campaigning on the matter of examiner irregularities for over five years and in that time I have found a lot of proof of inappropriate behaviour. Moreover, I have made Ministers, an Under Secretary of State, MPs, Civil Servants, journalists, teachers, Examination Boards officials, examiners and others aware of my findings.

I first came across allegations of potentially inappropriate examiner behaviour in 2006 or early in 2007 and with no significant difficulty could find that many GCSE and A Level examiners were holding seminars behind closed doors in return for payment. These seminars were held for teachers on the one hand and for pupils on the other. Many teachers and others are clearly aware that these examiners were running these seminars and many teachers did not like it: they felt that unless they or their school or their pupils were prepared to pay the examiners for the insights that were given, they were disadvantaged in public examination.

The majority of teachers and pupils did not attend the examiner seminars but many of them did.

The rules of the boards of examiners clearly state that anyone who is working as an examiner for them is forbidden from announcing any association between their work as an examiner and any other work they do. I found on many web sites that this rule was openly and easily flouted: examiners boldly stated that they were an examiner in subject X for Board Y … I gathered a relatively large batch of examples of these statements and web pages and asked the examination boards to comment on my findings.

In spite of sending live URLs from genuine web sites and thus proving that many examiners were selling their services for financial reward and without respecting the demand of anonymity, the AQA Board not only said that their systems were robust and that my information must be wrong but they threatened me with legal action unless I withdrew some of the claims I was making. What happened was that they had acted in their fury and haste and their threat of action against me dissipated when they realised their mistake.

I know the DfEE as it then was kept records of my correspondence with them, via my MPs: initially Dr Evan Harris and subsequently Linda Riordan because towards the end of 2009 they wrote to tell me that I had approached them on this matter several times and each time they were telling me that there was no problem, no wrongdoing.

The surprise here is that I spent a lot of time preparing my case and whilst I never met Dr Harris I did meet Ms Riordan and I spoke at length on the phone to a civil servant at the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority.

In my personal blog, I have documented my research and the responses of the various people whom I have involved in it. The first entry on my blog in this matter is dated 23^rd April 2007; and in that posting I announce that

I was called by a journalist last week who wanted to discuss the way that Britain's GCSE examiners may be behaving. He was specifically worried that the examiners who are marking our children's examination scripts are providing private tuition and behind closed doors advice to teachers and students alike.

http://duncanwil.blogspot.com/2007/04/examiners-cheating-on-behalf-of-their.html

The journalist in question was working at that time at the Times Educational Supplement (TES) and following our discussion he had published an article entitled Examiners should stop cheating. That article was followed by another article on this topic the week following the first one, both articles appearing in the TES.

In March 2009 I posted more discussion on this topic: http://duncanwil.blogspot.com/2009/03/level-exams-and-gcse-exams-for-sale.html You will see from this post that the two MPs I mentioned above had been fobbed off by various ministers and civil servants so that I felt driven to write the following, quoting a letter from me to Ms Riordan MP:

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.

Late in 2009 or early in 2010 I found Ed Balls, Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families on twitter and I started following him. I then tweeted him and mentioned my campaign and asked him was he doing about it. Eventually he responded and suggested that I wrote to him officially. I then wrote to Mr Balls and that led to my blog posting of 4^th February 2010: http://duncanwil.blogspot.com/2010/02/open-letter-to-ed-balls.html In that post I wrote the following:

As is my wont, I am crusading against corruption in the GCSE and A Level Examinations system. I have been carrying out this crusade for several years now. Evan Harris MP failed in this campaign. Linda MP failed in this campaign. Now Ed Balls who is Secretary of State responsible for this area has fobbed me off by passing my latest missive to a junior member of his staff.

I continued:

Here is the latest ill thought out response from Whitehall. Firstly the reply to my latest attempt at rooting out this corruption and secondly my initial response.

Thank you for your e-mail of 9 January alleging corruption in the GCSE and A Level examination systems.  I have been asked to reply.

I note that you have raised similar concerns with the Department on a number of occasions over recent years.  The awarding bodies and Ofqual have thorough systems in place to manage any conflicts of interests inherent in the exams system, and we have previously shared details of those with you.  Ofqual have also previously looked at the concerns you have raised.  This being so, I fear there is nothing I can add to the previous correspondence with you from Ministers and officials.

Yours sincerely,

HB 
QCDA, Ofqual and Exams Delivery

In the clearest terms possible, I had been told that there is nothing wrong: I sent proof upon proof, I sent web site addresses, I sent brochures and leaflets and they told me everything was fine! In my despondency at such shabby service I continued this post as follows:

Dear H,

This will not go away just because you think this matter has been resolved several times. It has not. No minister, no MP, no civil servant has ever accepted that examiners from UK Examinations Boards ARE ex officio making money by holding private seminars with candidates for THEIR examinations in contravention of the rules of those boards and in contravention of ethics and professional behaviour.

You must have seen the articles The Times Educational Supplement over the last three years or so, you must have read Warwick Mansell’s recent book on this and related examination issues, you really must be aware that I am not a crank and that I really do have documentary evidence that no one in the government and civil service, including you now, is in the least bit interested in upholding GCSE and A Level standards.

You are wrong in your assertion that you have previously looked at my concerns. Read my letters maybe but investigated no. I have been fobbed off before with the most inane arguments. I have sent you PROOF that examiners are in breach of their contracts with the Examination Boards and PROOF that these Boards are turning a blind eye to them. All of this is in direct contravention of codes of conduct, codes of practices, statutes and goodness knows what else. Here you are fobbing me off again. It really won’t do. To be fair to some examiners, once it has been pointed out to them that what they are doing is wrong, they stop. Yes, truly: one examiner wrote to me with a profound apology and he took down pages and pages from his web site because of what I pointed out to him. He realised the error of his ways. In the meantime, however, his Examinations Board, in its foot stamping belligerence closed its eyes and said the examiner had done no wrong.

Your thorough systems cannot be so thorough can they when it is as plain as the nose on your face that examiners are walking all over them all of the time. As I type this I can guarantee that there will be advertisements in many newspapers, on websites and in mail shots at the moment in the UK advertising Easter revision courses. Many of those courses will be run by and on behalf of Examiners from the GCSE and A Level Examinations Boards that I am persistently complaining about. Go to your library and reading rooms, go online, check the mail arriving at schools and colleges all over the country. Find those advertisements and then tell me I am wrong.

For your information, I have worked in countries where corruption and academic dishonesty are rife. I am currently working on a World Bank project in one such country. I am here to attempt to install democratic systems that are founded on integrity, transparency and the rule of law. Don’t you find it ironic that here I am trying to teach people in undeveloped countries how to behave whilst at home, the OFFICIAL LINE is that flawed and corrupt systems are allowed there too?

I told Ed Balls on his twitter account that I will not simply go away and I will not. If I have to wait for this government to be dismissed I will. Shouldn’t be long now should it?

Thanks for writing anyway even if it was such a shabby, ill thought out and badly researched email.

Following the above, I appreciated that MPs were not willing to blow the whistle. I appreciated that Secretary of State Balls had no interest in this matter and had dumped my evidence on a civil servant so on 9^th February 2010 I posted the following, http://duncanwil.blogspot.com/2010/02/level-bunkum-ii.html:

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

I never heard from any other MP, Minister, Under Secretary, Civil Servant or Examination Board official again and because of my work commitments I was unable to return to matter until last week when The Daily Telegraph broke the story again: the SAME story.

I have persistently tweeted Mr Balls on twitter over the last few months but I am not aware of any responses from him. I asked him last week for his thoughts on the Telegraph expose and he has not responded, to my knowledge.

9^th December 2011: http://duncanwil.blogspot.com/2011/12/gcse-and-level-examiners-caught-again.html

11^th December 2011: http://duncanwil.blogspot.com/2011/12/cheating-examiners-update-letter-to.html

Finally, in case you are not aware of it, Mr Michael Gove has been aware of this scandal since October 2009: that is when I first wrote to him and informed him of the allegations I was making. Mr Gove did respond to acknowledge my letter but thereafter he remained silent on the matter.  On 6^th January 2010 I posted he following:

In October, before I went on a two and a half month trip away from home, I wrote to Ed Balls and Michael Gove in relation to the cheating and corruption inherent in the GCSE and A Level Examinations system.

Balls is the Minister responsible for education and Gove is his Tory shadow.

The problem I have been campaigning on for a few years is a real one and I have presented a lot of hard facts and evidence of cheating and corruption and yet two MPs and various civil servants have been happy to turn a blind eye to what is happening. I have even been threatened with legal action by one Examinations Board who then had to slink away from their position when they realised they had tried far too hard to bully me into silence.

These wretched people who are presiding over this abuse of position and privilege have to be hounded out of office and in the case of Gove, prevented from getting into office. Neither of them has replied to my letters.

I need a Tiananmen Square moment to get these people out into the open and this corruption solved and stopped.

Yours sincerely

Duncan Williamson

Distribution list:

Select Committee Members:

Mr Graham Stuart (Chair)        graham.stuart.mp@parliament.uk,

Neil Carmichael                        neil.carmichael.mp@parliament.uk,

Alex Cunningham                    alex.cunningham.mp@parliament.uk,

Bill Esterson                             bill.esterson.mp@parliament.uk,

Pat Glass                                  pat.glass.mp@parliament.uk,

Damian Hinds                          damian.hinds.mp@parliament.uk,

Charlotte Leslie                        charlotte.leslie.mp@parliament.uk,

Ian Mearns                              ian.mearns.mp@parliament.uk,

Tessa Munt                              tessa.munt.mp@parliament.uk,

Lisa Nandy                              lisa.nandy.mp@parliament.uk,

Craig Whittaker                       craig.whittaker.mp@parliament.uk

Committee

Education Committee
               educom@parliament.uk

Committee Staff

Lynn Gardner: Clerk                                         gardnerlm@parliament.uk 

Elisabeth Bates: Second Clerk                            batese@parliament.uk

Penny Crouzet: Committee Specialist                 crouzetp@parliament.uk

Benjamin Nicholls: Committee Specialist              nichollsb@parliament.uk

Ameet Chudasama: Senior Committee Assistant chudasamaa@parliament.uk

Caroline Mcelwee: Committee Assistant              mcelweec@parliament.uk

Paul Hampson: Committee Support Assistant      hampsonp@parliament.uk

Cheating Examiners: letter to the BBC

Message to the You and Yours Programme, BBC Radio 4 in response to an article and interviews they have just broadcast

The programme spoke to

Dr Jim Sinclair, Director of JCQ (Joint Council for Qualifications)
Francis Thomas of Ofqual

The interviewer was Julian Worricker

Dear Sirs,

I have been campaigning for many years against the abuses in the examinations system that the Daily Telegraph highlighted last week. I have just sent a letter to the Education Select Committee for their meeting on Thursday. In summary, my letter says that the following people already knew about the examiner scandal  up to five or more years ago:

Michael Gove knew ... I told him 2 years ago
Ed Balls knew as the Secretary of State 2 years ago ... I told him
An under secretary of state knew because I communicated with her
Two MPs knew this because I communicated with them in detail from five years or so ago
Civil servants knew about this because I communicated with them
The AQA knew about my research because I told them what their examiners were doing: they told me their systems prevented what I was talking about and they threatened me with legal action if I disclosed what I knew

This is not a new problem but I just hope that this abuse of position and privilege will stop now.

Feel free to call me to discuss this at any time! I will happily share my letter and blog postings with you too.

Best wishes

Duncan Williamson
Halifax, West Yorkshire

Cheating Examiners Update: letter to Michael Gove

Dear Mr Gove,

I was very pleased to see that you set up an enquiry into allegations that some GCSE and A Level examiners could be working ultra vires their examination work.

However, I want to point out to you that I wrote to you about this matter in 2009 and whilst you did reply to me to acknowledge my letter, you did nothing further to explore the matter. I appreciate that at that time you were an opposition MP.

Nevertheless, I am writing to advise you that my blog contains references to the letters we exchanged as well as letters to Ed Balls and others. Some of my letters on this topic date back almost five years, highlighting the extent and depth of this problem with our public examination system.

I am also tweeting and updating my blog via a vis this subject and I am naming you over your failure to consider the matter even though I made you aware of it.

Best wishes



Duncan Williamson
Halifax, West Yorkshire

Sent from my iPad

Christmas Decorations

I have put up my new Christmas decorations now. Nothing grand but plenty good enough.

DW