Spare us the Quango-bashing

I've posted at the Public Finance blog on David Cameron's plans to cut quangos, where I question the main examples chosen by Cameron.

David Cameron has been vying with the government in the battle to be nastiest to quangos. Embarrassingly for the Conservative leader, Labour has shown that his plans would involve another 17 quangos, including an independent board to run the NHS – removing ministerial accountability from one of the most sensitive public services.

Beneath the rhetoric, there is some sense to the Cameron justification for a quango’s existence, that it should offer technical advice, impartial decisions and transparency. And there are undoubtedly too many quangos, not least in areas such as regional policy and skills.

But, why then did Cameron pick on the curriculum authority and Ofcom as his two shibboleths? TheQualifications, Curriculum and Development Agency, currently the QCA but due to transfer its regulatory arm to Ofqual, will be responsible for the
national curriculum, qualifications and national tests. All these are areas where it is unwise for politicians to take decisions, although, of course, ministers should be consulted on important changes. They all involve technical advice, impartial decisions and transparency. What this implies is a much more hands-on (dare one say it, centralist) role for government under a future Tory administration.

Similarly, it makes sense for communications regulator Ofcom to be at arm’s length from ministers, given the sensitivity of decisions about the BBC. It is simply daft to suggest that such an organisation should not have a small research and policy arm – and it is a lot better at it than most departmental research units.

Of course, ministers should make decisions and be accountable for them. And the lines of accountability for quangos could be better drawn. But the truth is that once Cameron really tries to wield his axe, he’ll find it is a lot harder – and less palatable – than it looks.

Do also read Will Straw's analysis showing how Cameron can't make the promised savings from axing quangos, at Labourlist.

Ken Boston quits

Ken Boston, the chief executive of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, has resigned ahead of a critical report this week about the problems with this summer's tests. While the problems seemed largely to have been the fault of ETS at the time, one assumes the Sutherland report on Tuesday is also critical of QCA. If so, he is wise to go now rather than face the media pack in full flight later in the week demanding his head.

I had many dealings with Ken Boston over the years, and always respected his no-nonsense Australian manner, even if I worried sometimes that he was getting too close to the teaching unions in his occasional kite-flying. I have no doubt that his contribution to English education will be missed. The system needs serious players like Ken - and it has too few of them.

Let's have more McQualifications

The patronising sneer that greeted news that qualifications awarded by McDonalds, Flybe and Network Rail are to be treated on a par with those developed by the exam boards illustrates all that is wrong with the British attitude to qualifications. It is far better to have good vocational qualifications developed by successful businesses than exam boards; and it is right that the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority should do all it can to ensure that those who achieve them can use them when they move to other companies. The problem with vocational qualifications has been their divorce from the needs of business; and the problem with the regular complants from the CBI and others about the readiness of young people for the world of work has been the unwillingness of business to engage with the education and training curriculum. This approach solves both problems at a stroke. With plans for compulsory training until 18, including for the 15% of young people in work without 'recognised training', there will need to be many more such qualifications accredited. And that is a good thing - for young people and business.

Qualified to differentiate

I have an op-ed piece in today's Guardian, arguing that Ed Balls needs to spend more time selling Diplomas, and less time worrying about whether they might replace A levels. You can read it here.

Trust in politicians

I have a comment piece in today's TES, making an unfashionable case for politicians to take decisions, and arguing that they are more likely to be guardians of standards than supposedly independent quangos. You can read the piece here. Here's an extract:

"I doubt that making the exam regulator more independent will stifle the sneerers so long as we still have competitive eam boards with little incentive to make exams tougher. Or a sytem of marking where an A or a B, a Level 4 or 5 varies in value from year to year, and paper to paper. Nor will it alter the mindset of commentators who long for the days when few went into higher education rather than the 42% of young adults who go to university now.

"But there’s a more fundamental problem here: independence reinforces the notion that politicians can’t be trusted. Yet because they are elected, politicians are more likely to act as guardians of standards than independent agencies, especially where those agencies become creatures of a prevailing professional orthodoxy....Schools and education policy should not be the preserve of the professional elite. If society – through the ballot box – wants standards maintained or improved, then their elected politicians should be held accountable for providing that reassurance.

"But they can’t do it by handing all their power to unelected quangos, whose instincts may be towards introducing measures that militate against what the public wants.... Of course ministers should have no power over grading decisions. That would be wholly improper. But they should be able to make strategic policy decisions in the public interest, including whether to allow coursework, permit resits or have national tests for 11 and 14 year-olds. And teaching unions or teachers who don’t like such policies should be able to influence, criticise and quiz ministers, in the same way that parents, students and employers can. However, without responsibility, politicians have no power."

Too many retakes?

Whatever the impact of Ed Balls' move to give the exam regulator greater independence - something that seems to have caused irrational excitement with normally reliable commentators - it risks ducking the real issues around the examination system. One is the perennial question of whether it is a good idea to have competition between exam boards. A second is raised by this morning's Times Educational Supplement: why are pupils allowed to have unlimited retakes at A-level? David Blunkett and Tessa Blackstone resisted attempts to allow unlimited retakes (just as they insisted on requiring a minimum amount of synoptic assessment in A levels) when they were at the Department for Education and Employment. That was not what independent advisers advocated, and later ministers changed the position. We are now moving away from coursework to controlled assessment again at GCSE. But it is worth remembering that in all the battles on standards, it has been politicians not regulators who have - with the exception, to be fair, of Ken Boston on coursework - insisted on keeping measures that are most likely to maintain standards.

An end to dumbing down debates?

Ed Balls is announcing today that he intends to split the functions of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, so that testing and exam regulation are 'independent' of ministers and answerable to Parliament. This is not a new idea, but it is doubtful it will make a whit of difference to the annual dumbing down debate each August. After all, the competitive exam boards will remain, and they have no new incentive to lift standards (a single exam board would be better). In itself the split is not necessarily a bad idea, but there is a real danger that without ministerial pressure to continue regular externally marked testing of 11 and 14 year-olds (such tests for 7 year olds have already been largely abandoned) the testing system will be effectively passed over to schools. The unions have long lobbied for teachers to mark their own tests, as now happens at 7 where Balls is now rightly taking remedial action to deal with a slip in standards since. National testing could be replaced by sampling, fine for statisticians, but useless for measuring the performance of individual schools or stretching individual pupils. The legislation to split QCA must make very clear that national externally marked tests for all are here to stay, and it is the responsibility and duty of the new body to ensure this happens. Otherwise the danger is that this measure will have the opposite effect from that intended: it could lead to some real dumbing down of our whole system of accountability.

Do we really need modular GCSEs?

The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority is apparently planning to allow up to 50% of GCSE marks for modular examinations which would be taken during the course, rather than at its end. I wonder how wise this is. The combination of coursework and modularity has been central - justified or not - to the whole accusation about exams being dumbed down, especially A-levels. Now QCA is sensibly cutting some GCSE coursework. But few would argue that it is easier to get a good grade if you can repeat a component several times. Who is asking for these modular GCSEs? I can't believe teachers or students want the whole two years before a GCSE turned into a permanent exam (just as QCA are cutting the A-level modules). We should at least retain one examination which is based wholly on a synoptic assessment of what young people know at the end of their studies rather than mixing it with modules that cast aspersions on their achievements.
UPDATE: I have been contacted by a diligent QCA press officer who points out that GCSEs can currently be either unitised or linear (this has been the case since 2001). "We have to renew the exam criteria every 8 years or so, and we are asking what people think of unitisation," he says. He also points out that awarding bodies almost always offer GCSEs as linear (final exam) qualifications, even though they could offer unitised versions if they wanted to. So here's hoping they still will in the future.