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Exams system faces health check

by Dave Keating | May 16, 2008 at 02:03 am | 116 views | add comment

This news comes shortly after Prime Minister Gordon Brown revealed that hospitals will now be paid based on patient satisfaction rather than number of pateitns treated.

The public is to be asked whether it thinks standards in exams are falling, by a new independent watchdog.

The first head of Ofqual - Kathleen Tattersall - is to gather evidence to answer the thorny question of whether exams are getting easier.

And she says the public has a "simplistic" expectation that assessment should be absolutely perfect or accurate.

That might not be the case where exams were essay-form, not multiple choice.

Ms Tattersall was speaking as Ofqual was being formally launched.

Its creation was announced last autumn, when the government said it was splitting the two functions of the exams watchdog QCA, which had been charged with making sure standards were maintained and with shaping the curriculum and testing regime.

The new body is being set up to be a regulator independent of ministers.