In the attempt to produce increasing numbers of graduates every year, standards have steadily declined ever since the first educational theorists and egalitarians took possession of the Ministry of Education in England in the 1940s. The promulgation of such theories over the decades and their imposition by central and local bureaucracies on every state school has been very expensive, costing, on average, as much again as the normal running expenses of schools and salaries of teachers.
But it now appears that examination standards are now so low and grades so indistinct that we needn't worry any more about selecting students for our universities. They can as well be chosen by tossing a coin as by paying attention to the grades that are reached. Here is a news item from today's Daily Telegraph. A-levels, for those unacquainted with our system, are the university entrance exams (usually two or three specific subjects are taken -- rarely including maths or science subjects these days because these are too difficult for most young people): <<<< TOSS OF A COIN 'AS GOOD AS A-LEVELS' by John Clare (Education Editor) A-levels are only slightly better than tossing a coin as a way of predicting who will do well at university, a professor of educational assessment said yesterday. The relationship between students' A-level scores and the class of degree they obtained was so weak that admissions tutors might as well trust to chance. Prof Dylan Wiliam, of King's College, London, said that less than 10% of the differences in students' degree classes were accounted for by differences in their A-level grades. "To put it more concretely, if you had two candidtaes competing for one place on a degree programme, tossing a coin would get you the better applicant -- in the sense of the one who go on to get the better degree -- 50% of the time. "By taking the one with the better A-level grades, you would get the better candidate just 60% of the time, but you would get the weaker candidate 40% of the time." At King's, 10% of the students who were admitted with A-level grades AAB obtained a first-class degree three years later. But so did 10% of those with three C grades, and 10% of those with three Ds. "It does point to the need to take factors other than A-level grades into account," the professor said. One problem was that A-levels were accurate to only plus or minus one grade, so a B could equally well be an A or a C. another was that A-levels measured achievement rather than potential. However, the Government and the exam boards were reluctant to admit that exams were unreliable "for fear of destroying public faith in the system". <<<< Keith Hudson ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------ Keith Hudson, General Editor, Handlo Music, http://www.handlo.com 6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England Tel: +44 1225 312622; Fax: +44 1225 447727; mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ________________________________________________________________________
