Dumbing down the English education system - the fightback

It is common knowledge that this most disingenuous Labour government has conspired to "improve" exam results as a way of showing that education standards are improving, when they are not. Anybody who has had the misfortune to interview a school-leaver who has 8, 9, 10 or more top grade GCSEs and 3, 4 or more really excellent A'levels will know the problem. The results speak of the person being a genius or at least an excellently educated individual but you discover they have no mathematical aptitude, can hardly string a sentence together and have little idea of the practicalities of work. The school leaver with their fantastic grades this decade seem to be educationally about the level of a poor A'level student 20+ years ago.

So it was with some interest that I learned that the Conservatives plan to put a range of GCSE and A-level exam papers online, so that standards can be tracked over time. A great idea and one that would show how seriously devalued GCSE and A'levels have become.

Have a look at newspaper articles relating to the dumbing down of GCSEs and A'levels, especially those for mathematics and science, and wonder how anyone could think otherwise. You might also wonder what has happened to Lord Drayson and his personal review of GCSE and A-level science exam papers to satisfy himself they are not being "dumbed down". In December 2008 he said that:

"In coming into this job one of the things I asked my private office to do was to get me a set of last year's GCSE papers. They are also in the process of getting last year's A-level papers."

He had also "dusted down" the A-level and O-level papers that he took in the 1970s.

He said it was important to "make absolutely sure that the educational process to develop the brightest and the best... provides them with what they need too.

"As a science minister I'm determined to make sure that happens."

He added: "No dumbing down on my watch."

How did the review go then Lord Drayson?

Gordon Brown, Tony Blair before him, and other Labour ministers are fond of telling us how the UK's future is as a knowledge based economy. Well we have highly qualified students, but their qualifications are all but worthless.


I challenge you to look at a 1970s or early 1980s O'Level maths paper and a Physics or Chemistry A'level paper from the same period and tell me that standards have not dropped. You may carry out the exercise for English or History instead if you wish.