- "It's as if they are treating children as an oppressed
minority whose feelings they are afraid to hurt."
-
- School exam chiefs are to remove all risk of failure
from key national tests by replacing the current F for "fail"
grade with an N for "nearly".
-
- The changes, which have been condemned as "politically
correct twaddle", include instructions that markers are to grade maths
exam answers as either "creditworthy" or "not creditworthy"
instead of correct or incorrect.
-
- Guidelines explaining the changes were sent by the Government's
Qualifications and Curriculum Authority to the markers of this summer's
national curriculum exams.
-
- The instructions cover English, maths and science exams
at key stages one, two and three, which are taken by seven, 11 and 14-year-olds
in all state schools and some private schools. The booklet for the stage
two tests says: "The following method is used to note the marks awarded:
1 means that a creditworthy response has scored one mark; 0 means that
a response is not creditworthy."
-
- It adds: "Children who narrowly fail to achieve
the lowest level targeted by the levels three-five tests are awarded a
compensatory level two. Children who score fewer marks than required for
a compensatory award will be awarded N."
-
- A QCA spokesman denied that the marking scheme blurred
the distinction between passing and failing.
-
- A "compensatory level two" and "N"
were used because "the focus is on reaching level three, the lowest
level targeted by the tests, so if pupils don't reach that target it does
not mean that they have failed; it means they have nearly reached the target".
-
- The spokesman said the use of "creditworthy"
was justified because some answers to maths questions were worth several
marks and it was possible to gain some marks even if the final answer was
wrong.
-
- He admitted, however, that many questions had only a
single answer and that in those cases "when we say it's not creditworthy
then I suppose we do mean it's wrong".
-
- Nick Seaton, the chairman of the Campaign for Real Education,
described the changes as "political correctness gone stark raving
bonkers". He said the educational establishment had become afraid
to use the words right, wrong and fail.
-
- He dismissed the QCA's explanations as "twaddle".
The use of words such as creditworthy, non-creditworthy and nearly by markers
did "a disservice to our children because they represent a refusal
to accept reality".
-
- He added: "This sort of meaningless language begins
with the Government, and seeps down to teachers and on to the children
who are no longer taught the difference between right and wrong but that
everything is simply a matter of personal choice.
-
- "It's as if they are treating children as an oppressed
minority whose feelings they are afraid to hurt." Other critics said
the use of "vague marking criteria" gave examiners leeway to
manipulate results.
-
- The Government has been accused of "dumbing down"
GCSE exams to increase the pass rate - a charge denied by the Department
for Education.
-
- © Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2003.
-
- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/09/21/nexam21.xml&sSheet
=/portal/2003/09/21/ixportal.html&secureRefresh=true&_requestid=16812
|
