Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

My right hon. Friend has summarised brilliantly the argument that I was trying to make. It is a huge concern, because as he hints, a huge amount of independent academic research carried out in recent years points to the decline in exam standards over time. To take just one example, Peter Tymms at the Centre for Evaluation and Monitoring at the university of Durham has shown that a student who got an E in A-level maths in 1998 would have been awarded a B in 2004. Professor Peter Williams, appointed by this Government, said in The Observer newspaper:""Over 20 or 30 years I don't think there is any doubt whatsoever that absolute A-level standards have fallen.""They have edged south, continuously over a long period of time.""I think all university academics and a good proportion of sixth-form teachers would agree with my assertion."" That and other evidence has been available for several years now, but what concerns us is the attitude to such evidence expressed by Ofqual's chief regulator in her evidence to the Standing Committee. When asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr. Walker),""Does Ofqual believe that there is grade inflation in A-levels and GCSEs?"" she replied:""Ofqual will take the evidence that it has and that comes to its attention to make any pronouncement, one way or the other, on issues of that kind. That is something that we have not particularly explored and I do not think that it would be appropriate for me to come to a view without full consideration of the evidence."" Why is the matter one that Ofqual has "not particularly explored"? When my hon. Friend asked whether Ofqual would explore the issue in future, he received another odd answer from the chief regulator:""What we will be doing as a regulator is looking at the evidence, particularly where there are any issues of public concern. If that issue is a matter of public concern, clearly we will be seeking evidence on it, but there are a range of other issues where our starting point would always be to look at the evidence and to come to a considered judgment on the evidence."" Why have the QCA and Ofqual not been looking at the evidence, including that of Peter Williams and the Durham evidence? What did the chief regulator mean when she said:""If that issue is a matter of public concern"?" What did she mean by "if"? As my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) suggests, of course it is an issue of public concern. We read about it in the newspapers the whole time. When challenged by my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs. Miller), the chief regulator's response was:""Ofqual has been set up to regulate the system, to get better public accountability for the system, to ensure that there is a better public understanding of the issues and to assure public confidence. That is what regulators do. I do not think that it has been set up to address any specific concerns, such as the one that was just mentioned"––[Official Report, Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Public Bill Committee, 3 March 2009; c. 70, Q182 to Q184.]" or indeed the one raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal. The anxiety that that answer provoked was compounded by minutes of Ofqual board meetings that were leaked to a Sunday newspaper. It was clear from those minutes that Ofqual was not sure whether there was any methodology that it could use to compare standards between a non-modular GCSE exam and a modular exam that was being introduced by the QCA. According to the newspaper, the chief regulator said that Ofqual and the exam boards""need...to arrive at a clearer picture of what is meant by 'maintaining standards' when the structure of qualifications changes."" That makes one wonder whether Ofqual is the right body for the job, particularly as there are academics, such as Professor Tymms, who could say precisely how to make such a comparison, using a sample of cognitive ability tests. That is similar to the comparison proposed in the second part of the Liberal Democrat amendment 71. Our proposal, set out in new clause 2, is to benchmark comparative qualifications in other countries. New clause 2 says:""The Secretary of State shall commission a comparative study…of the standards of…GCSEs, and…A levels…with comparable qualifications in each of the jurisdictions of the European Union"." Of course, the Secretary of State could extend the study to countries such as Singapore and Japan. That measure reflects a policy announcement made by my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) in a speech at the Haberdashers' Aske's school, in which he said:""We have asked Sir Richard Sykes, the former rector of Imperial College and one of our most successful scientists, to review our entire system of assessment and qualifications in this country and we have made it clear that his aim is to ensure once more that our exams are internationally competitive…That is why we would legislate to make the fixing of our exam standards to an international benchmark crucial to our programme of radical reform.""