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

[ParentOfOne]

This is going to sound a very banal question, but can someone please explain the concept of exam boards?

In many other countries, it's the Department of Education that sets the national curriculum and prepares the national exams (GCSE, A-levels and equivalents).

• Why do we have various boards in the UK?
• Are they all private entities?
• Who pays for them?
• Has it always been like this, or was there a time when it was all done by the Department of Education?
• How meaningful are the differences between exam boards? Eg how much of a difference is there between Edexcel maths and AQA maths?
• Is each secondary school free to choose which exam board to follow?
• How comparable are the programs and the difficulty? Does this create an unfair advantage, if getting a high score is easier with one board than another?
• If there are no meaningful differences, why do we have multiple exam boards?

I have seen that Wikipedia provides some history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Examination_boards_in_the_United_Kingdom but doesn't address the main questions

@ParentOfOne - I was agreeing with @Octavia64's point that many faith schools are undersubscribed and adding the more significant point that many faith schools are VC schools. The claim you are disputing is that many faith schools do not discriminate on the basis of religion. As most VC schools do not discriminate on the basis of religion, that claim is clearly and unambiguously true. @Octavia64 is correct - may faith schools do not discriminate on the basis of religion.

The figures given on the Fair Admissions Campaign page to which you link are over a decade out of date. A lot has changed since then.

Quick Google for parents 😊

Nope. Its bullshit

Where is your evidence? There is evidence of how they are set, calibrated and reviewed in terms of level of skill difficulty by Ofqual. The qual spec and assessment strategy set out the level of difficulty. It's equivalent to GCSE because they ARE GCSEs. They are just written without UK bias and are recognised internationally.

Your opinion isn't fact or evidence.
Chat GPT doesn't agree with you either though.

@Plantatreetoday I think as the faith owns the buildings and grounds and pays a % towards the education ( however much that may be ) it’s only right that faith is an upper criteria when offering places

No, it is not.

Again: we would not accept this absurd injustice for any other state-funded social service, so why on earth do we accept it for schools???

Could I donate a plot of land to the NHS, and maybe commit a certain amount of (minimal) funding every year, for the NHS to build a hospital there, but on condition that this hospital must prioritise the patients who share my religious or political worldview, and discriminate against those who don't?

Can I? Yes or no? After all, I'm contributing to the costs, am I not?

I very much hope your answer is a resounding "no".

Again: if we don't accept this nonsense for other crucial services like hospitals, why do we accept it for schools?

"Historical reasons" is not a valid explanation. There were always historical reasons for every injustice in the past, yet we have got rid of them and moved on.

It was me too 😆

@twistyizzy I do not have an opinion on this.
But you cannot possibly think that

Chat GPT doesn't agree with you either

is a valid indicator of anything!!!!

I have often pondered this very subject so thanks for asking these questions! So much complexity caused by the current system - one recent example - my DC is at a 6th form where two schools merge and become one - but in some subjects the kids have studied different exam boards for a given subject at GCSE meaning content which may be helpful for the A level has or has not been covered. Baffling really. I just struggle to see any advantages at all.

They don’t donate land and buildings though. The buildings remain under the ownership of those religions.

If the tax man wants to buy those then fine.

I don’t think atm they could afford that
If parishioners pay towards a school those parishioners should get first dibs. Of course they should. It’s their church school. So on this I disagree

and no my kids didn’t go to a faith school

I think what you are missing is this: the idea of the exam board and people starting companies that are exam boards happened long before the education system was one system, free at the point of access, serving all in the same way. Exam boards started as private companies which existed to award qualifications to those worthy of them, long before education for all was a concept.

When secondary education became free and compulsory, and later when exams around 16 became the normal for the vast majority of people. the exam boards existed. They had already been running exams for years. They had already developed areas/subjects that they examined, and had experience in setting and marking papers in these subjects.

There was no need for the Government to suddenly declare that most of these organisations could no-longer examine in the new state sector and so put most of them out of business (with inevitable job losses etc) while having to quickly expand one to be several times bigger than it already was, and able to administer and mark exams in subjects it has no experience in. So they didn't! They gradually increased the streamlining of the exams, eventually establishing Ofqual "to maintain standards and public confidence in qualifications and operates as a non-ministerial government department reporting to Parliament." but kept the separate exam boards with all their knowledge and experience.

@Plantatreetoday If parishioners pay towards a school those parishioners should get first dibs. Of course they should. It’s their church school. So on this I disagree

I note you didn't answer my question about hospitals.
Would you accept the same arrangement for hospitals?

Would you accept a Muslim organisation contributing the land and some minimal funding for the creation of an NHS hospital, on condition that Muslim patients get priority and everyone else gets discriminated? Or a Christian one. Or a Hindu one. Or an atheist one. Etc. Would you? Yes or no?

It seems to me that we only accept this for schools, that we would rise up in arms if the same arrangement were proposed for other services like hospitals, yet as a society we cannot seem to explain why. Am I wrong?

Interesting thread.

I agre with you in both points.
Different exam boards generating their profit each and having CEOs each doesn't sound efficient.
And, if each of them is asking the questions differently, and it is decided for the whole school, it sounds even worse to me - so if you are great biologist with low essay skills on a school which picks up the essay-ish board, your mark suffer.
If having a choice of method is useful, and it probably is, setting it on school & subject level is not really fair.

And yes, state paying for school places discriminating by faith is weird as well.

I see fairness in education as an important value, but not everyone shares this view. It seems that many posters are just defending the status quo and historical reasons, with "not the biggest problem" shut downs.
However, this is a discussion forum, why shouldn't people discuss how the world could look like?

(I'm not talking now about the "I don't believe centralised education" posters. That is an opinion about what should we aspire to, so that's relevant addition to the discussion)

@stichguru I think what you are missing is this: the idea of the exam board and people starting companies that are exam boards happened long before the education system was one system, free at the point of access, serving all in the same way.

Yes, I understand now, this has been explained more than once in this thread. This much wasn't clear to me, and I thanked those who shared these comments.

FYi exam boards are usually educational charities so don't make a "profit" as such ie not to share holders. They aren't allowed to "profit" from what they do, precisely because they are part funded by schools/colleges etc.
As an example, our AO builds and pays for schools in 3rd world countries.

Tbh I didn’t read the part about hospitals at all as I think the issue is deflecting

Obviously saving lives and health care is very different from education.
however
We could look at this in a different way
private health centres and hospitals do not treat those who don’t pay privately. ( the nhs sometimes pay extra on people’s behalf ) So really, we already have selective medical care

This is similar to private Schools

Its just another option and takes the full financial burden away from the tax payer

You may not agree but I think choise is a good thing and obviously anyone that’s happy to and can pay for themselves or at least subsidise the system is a good thing.
There are other alternatives in abundance

It is done by one exam board in Scotland so yet it is possible & they also have a commercial side for overseas work.

@twistyizzy FYi exam boards are usually educational charities so don't make a "profit" as such ie not to share holders. They aren't allowed to "profit" from what they do, precisely because they are part funded by schools/colleges etc.
As an example, our AO builds and pays for schools in 3rd world countries.

That's only part of the story. An institution can still profit and benefit its managers or workers financially even if it doesn't distribute dividends to shareholders.

Take universities, where the vice-chancellor of a mediocre university like Bolton gets paid ca. £330k.

School academies are charities, yet more than 60 CEOs earned over £200k https://schoolsweek.co.uk/revealed-the-academy-ceo-pay-premium/ , while often paying their teachers less than non-academies. I am all for paying for talent, but this is like expecting to fix the NHS by paying more a CEO who pays nurses and doctors less.

Exam boards may not distribute profits to shareholders, but this doesn't mean that their CEOs do not have every incentive to charge as much as possible

@Plantatreetoday
Tbh I didn’t read the part about hospitals at all as I think the issue is deflecting

It is not deflecting at all. I think it is perverse that a crucial state-provided service, funded by everyone's taxes, discriminates based on religion.

If you think this is normal we can only agree to disagree.

I want a society which guarantees the same opportunities to everyone, and where no one is discriminated based on religion or political ideas. You obviously do not want that. What more can I say to someone like you?

private health centres and hospitals do not treat those who don’t pay privately. ( the nhs sometimes pay extra on people’s behalf ) So really, we already have selective medical care
This is similar to private Schools
Its just another option and takes the full financial burden away from the tax payer
You may not agree but I think choise is a good thing

??? I have nothing against private hospitals and private schools. The clue is in the word: "private", paid for by those who use them, not by the state.

It is not "choice" if everyone's taxes pay for a service that discriminates based on religion

It is not "choice" if Christian families can apply to all non-religious schools and to all Christian schools, while non-Christian families can apply only to non-religious schools (because Christian schools will discriminate against them).

That's not choice. That's discrimination

There used to be more differences- so one might have more coursework and one might have a higher weighting to exams for eg. But all that’s gone now - they’re all more or less the same. Different poems in the literature anthologies is one difference that still exists.

The difference of course with religious schools ( in comparison to those institutions that sre completely private ) is that the religious community pays towards that school. In their donations made on a regular basis.
If you aren’t paying into that you are gaining by keeping your money for yourself
If you are paying into that you are gaining by getting priority placement.

There are alternative schools paid fully by the tax payer. It’s not like those who don’t pay more sre left with nothing. There is provision for all

I think that’s fare for all
It saves the tax payer money too.( A small bonus for all )

@Plantatreetoday For the last time, we would not accept this kind of arrangement with any other state-funded services. We would not accept it with hospitals. We would not let a religious organisation donate the land for an NHS hospital and contribute (minimal) funding on condition that the hospital discriminates in favour of that faith and against all other patients.

If you want a school or a hospital that does that, use your own money, not everyone's tax money!!!

If you aren’t paying into that you are gaining by keeping your money for yourself
If you are paying into that you are gaining by getting priority placement.

This is not Germany. We don't have a compulsory Church tax based on your annual income. Some people may contribute to that with donations to their churches. many do not. In fact, many stop going to church as soon as their child is admitted, which tells you how flawed the system is.

It’s not like those who don’t pay more sre left with nothing.

I never said that. I said that religious families can apply to both faith and non-faith schools, while non-religious families only to the latter (in theory they can apply to religious ones, but their chances are slower).

You are also forgetting that religious lobbies tried to get rid of the 50% limit (new faith schools can discriminate on only 50% of the places), but luckily failed https://humanists.uk/campaigns/schools-and-education/faith-schools/

I am out. It is useless to repeat the same points over and over again.

For me, it is a fundamental principle of democracy and fairness that no citizen should be discriminated based on their religious or political views.
For many in this country and in this thread it isn't.

I have nothing else to say to these people. Our moral compass and fundamental values are too different.

Your children will know you were on the wrong side of history.

It seems to me that one aspect of the GCSE and A Level system (and other qualifications regulated by Ofqual and run by the exam boards) is the personnel involved. Exams are currently set, marked and moderated by people contracted for those roles, and the majority of them are subject specialist working teachers. They have a vested interest in the fairness, value and integrity of the exams they are engaged with. They set exams that take into account the needs of teachers and students, and exams are marked not to some arbitrary benchmark, but with an understanding of what can be expected from a student after two years’ study.

This is fair to students and reasonably economic to operate. An assistant examiner, for example, will mark a set amount of work and be paid per task, and there are few overheads - few earn enough from exam work to run to the expense of pensions, and there’s no sick leave or maternity leave to factor in, and no redundancy costs if entries fall and fewer examiners are needed. It is also a brilliant form of professional development for teachers at no cost to their schools, and they earn money for engaging with that professional development, so it’s a win-win there.

I wouldn’t want to see exams set by full-time civil servants who haven’t seen the inside of a classroom since they left school, and the cost of entries would certainly rise if there was a full time workforce producing and marking papers, because of the increased overheads.

And just to clarify, AQA is a charity. Any profit is reinvested in developing qualifications. All the other boards are for-profit businesses.

Im finding your posts quite aggressive.
The system we have here allows for religious schools based on choice

That is a system I believe in. For everyone to choose how their children can be educated.

For some faith is extremely important for others it isn’t.
If faith is of no importance then schools which are not faith schools are better suited to those families.

I wouldn’t want to live in a country that doesnt allow for and hence appreciate choice for all its citizens !

Please don’t bring my children into a discussion on here as if you know better. It’s very rude !

I am glad my pp to you explaining the differences in some boards re question types was helpful

We used to have a good education system too. No longer….

Can you define 'working fine'?