Please explain exam boards to me: why so many? Why doesn't the DofE do it?

@twistyizzy You accept no shame? Oh what a surprise. Even those who thought slavery and racial segregation were good and God's will accepted no shame.

The difference between me and you is that I don't want state-funded schools which propose my worldview and discriminate against others.
For the record, I would totally oppose a hypothetical school which does exactly that.

How this means I oppose plurality of choice is beyond my comprehension.

You don't need other taxpayers to fund a school which discriminates against other worldviews to teach your children your religion.

That the faith character makes schools better is notoriously nonsense. Most tend to be more socially selective, as explained by the Sutton Trust in several occasions https://www.suttontrust.com/our-research/selective-comprehensives-2024/

@twistyizzy Yes it's under Article 2 combimed, or alongside, Article 14
It isn't about discrimination, it's about parental having the right to have their child educated according to their religion etc. That's why you legally couldn't get rid of them.

Thank you for reminding me that current UK laws allow this kind of discrimination. None of what you have written changes my point.

Everyone's taxes are being used to fund schools which discriminate admission based on religion. That's a fact. You can call it prioritise instead of discriminate if you'd like, but the facts remain the same.

It is also an undeniable fact that we would not accept this kind of discrimination for other state-funded services. We wouldn't accept it for hospitals or GPs, for example.

These are the facts. You can change the words but you cannot change the facts.

Shame on you for approving this kind of discrimination.

But a country so rooted in tradition that it still has a monarchy is unlikely to accept these self-evident banalities.

Exactly, this is a complete non-issue. OP has an agenda

@Octavia64 consider if it was car manufacturing. The government nationalises Land Rover - fine. It then bans all other cars from sale in the U.K. so that everyone has to use Land Rover - not fine and breaks any number of laws.

This comparison is utterly irrelevant.
The government's job is to provide a legal and regulatory framework. It is not to build cars.

However, it is the government's job to provide state education, to set the national curriculum and to oversee exam qualifications which are recognised nation-wide.

That's why I said that privatisation makes sense in some areas but not with exams.

Would it make sense to have multiple General Medical Councils, each with similar but slightly different rules and exams, and a government department to oversee that the various councils are similar enough? Of course not, it would be utterly bonkers!

the exam boards make a good living writing and selling qualifications that the U.K. has abandoned - o levels, IGcSEs (old style GCSEs) etc.

And they would be absolutely free to continue selling whatever services to whatever entities or governments want to buy those services from them

It seems to me that in this country we get to combine the worst of privatisation with the worst of state ownership

I genuinely don’t understand what is wrong with the current system. Seems to work efficiently and has plenty of choice of schools. What is exactly the problem with it?

@twistyizzy But it's enshrined within HR act that parents have a choice and state can't interfere with parental religion/ethics etc.
We need more choice in state schools, not less. I am vehemently against any form of homogenous state run educational institutions.

???? Surely you are not saying this nonsense in good faith?

We currently have a system where everyone's taxes pay for schools which discriminate admission based on religion. How is that fair???

You are welcome to teach your children whatever religion you want to teach them. But why use MY tax money for a school which prioritises YOU discriminating against ME? This nonsense would be unconstitutional in many countries, but, hey, we don't even have a proper written constitution here...

I ask again: would you accept a state-funded hospital which discriminates against patients of a certain religion, or of no religion? If you wouldn't, why do you accept it with state schools? Just because you happen to benefit from that discrimination?

@Octavia64 in general, the impression I am getting is that you think there should be a uniform education system.
there should be a national curriculum that all schools stick to and one lot of exams.

Absolutely not! I have never said nor implied that! You have misunderstood completely. Big time.

I don't want uniformity. I would want to avoid having the worst of centralised government oversight coupled with the worst of privatisation. Which is what we have now That's very, very different.

We still have a government department (Ofqual) approving exam content.
But exam boards are outsourced to private businesses, which we pay with our own tax money, which we subject to government control.

Saying that this seems to me like the worst of both worlds doesn't mean I want uniformity, and doesn't mean I think exam boards are the most pressing problem in education today

@Octavia64 in general, the impression I am getting is that you think there should be a uniform education system.
there should be a national curriculum that all schools stick to and one lot of exams.

Absolutely not! I have never said nor implied that! You have misunderstood completely. Big time.

I don't want uniformity. I would want to avoid having the worst of centralised government oversight coupled with the worst of privatisation. Which is what we have now That's very, very different.

We still have a government department (Ofqual) approving exam content.
But exam boards are outsourced to private businesses, which we pay with our own tax money, which we subject to government control.

Saying that this seems to me like the worst of both worlds doesn't mean I want uniformity, and doesn't mean I think exam boards are the most pressing problem in education today

@twistyizzy If you read what I have written, you will notice that nowhere have I said nor even only remotely implied that this should be a top priority.

The complete lack of accountability of academies is a more pressing problem. This has enabled the kind of abuse we saw at Holland Park school and Mossbourne. I made a post about it last year https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/secondary/5225872-mossbourne-academies-investigations-into-alleged-emotional-harm-and-abuse-why-are-needlessly-strict-academies-unaccountable and nothing has changed: no one has been held accountable.
Again: the worst of privatisations: these schools want to be independent and tell us that if we don't like them we can send our kids elsewhere, but we don't have the option not to fund them with our taxes.

Or the fact that 1/3 of state schools are religious and discriminate based on religion in their admission criteria. We would not accept a state-funded hospital for Catholics sending non-Catholics to a longer queue, so why we accept it for schools is beyond me. There are historical reasons, like the churches owning the land, but there are always historical reasons behind all the injustices we have now got rid of. We wouldn't fund a Catholic hospital that discriminates against Catholics if the Catholic church donated the land, so that's really not a valid example.

Sorry, I got carried away.

@Octavia64 i get that you think that the government should set a curriculum and provide education and have a single exam board but in England we don’t.
and when you say it is the job of the government that is just an opinion.

Good point. let me rephrase then: regardless of our opinions on what a government should and should not provide, the fact remains that we have a very odd and inconsistent system, where on one hand we seem to welcome "competition" and diversity by allowing multiple exam boards, but on the other hand it seems to be a false and deceiving choice, because we also have a government department (Ofqual) whose job it is to oversee all these exam boards and ensure they aren't that different in the end. See my point?

@BananaPeels What taxes are going towards these companies? The exams are paid for per exam per candidate. Doesn’tmatter if it is one exam board or multiple, the cost is the same.

Exactly that: these exam boards charge per exam per candidate.
State schools pay this cost.
And where do state schools get their money, if not from our taxes??

SchoolsWeek wrote about this ever-increasing cost https://schoolsweek.co.uk/schools-over-a-barrel-as-exam-fees-rise-again/

as did Tes https://www.tes.com/magazine/news/general/exam-boards-gcse-and-a-level-entry-fee-increases

@BananaPeels What taxes are going towards these companies? The exams are paid for per exam per candidate. Doesn’tmatter if it is one exam board or multiple, the cost is the same.

Exactly that: these exam boards charge per exam per candidate.
State schools pay this cost.
And where do state schools get their money, if not from our taxes??

SchoolsWeek wrote about this ever-increasing cost https://schoolsweek.co.uk/schools-over-a-barrel-as-exam-fees-rise-again/

as did Tes https://www.tes.com/magazine/news/general/exam-boards-gcse-and-a-level-entry-fee-increases