Let us look properly at this exam results crisis with Covid – not at the detailed problems with estimation, but with all the issues in the bigger scheme of things which are brushed under the carpet for a long time.

NINE BIG EXAM PROBLEMS.

1. RESULTS ARE DIFFERENT AND INCOMPARABLE. Testing understanding differs from subject to subject. In one subject or another you read, compute, make, evaluate, calculate, solve, absorb laws, locate understanding, learn languages, master techniques, weigh significance, reflect on persons, weigh ideas, assess cultures and so on. These are different, but we put them on the same grade scale and sum them as performance.
2. TESTING IS FALLIBLE. Testing can be wrong or arbitrary. I’ve looked at exam papers where 20% of the questions are wrong. They are always selective within the subject and curriculum. The curriculum may be weak – excluding slavery, misreading world wars, selecting out authors arbitrarily, missing out maths concepts, out of date or trendy, reflecting examiner/teacher biases. It always involves judgment.
3. GRADING IS PARTLY ARBITRARY. Grading is arbitrary in a number of ways. It requires differentiation which may not be there or be imposed. Some questions differentiate between scholars;  others may not. Marking often involves judgment. Exams set out, often, to be discriminatory. Results add differences. Grades bunch. They personalize; Fred was good at this but bad at that; he becomes average. Some know how to do exams; others do not, and so a skill is measured, not necessarily education within a subject. Although marking is strongly monitored for fairness, that highlights the problem.
4. TESTING EDUCATION – WHAT IS THAT? We do not know what education is. It changes several times within out lifetimes. Is it knowledge, understanding, technical skills, data manipulation, wisdom, job training, life skills, values, frontier knowledge or what? What is a good grasp of  Those inside one definition do well. Those outside it may do badly.
5. THE EDUCATIONAL ACCESS/ PROMOTION THING. The significance of the grading is partly in terms of acquiring access to high paying jobs through career routes. Of course, we need doctors, architects and ambulance drivers who know what they are doing, but the systems of getting into Oxbridge, promotion and opening doors are substantially socially constructed and driven by wealth right down to buying houses near good schools. The present rows over awarded grades are largely about access to educational and career routes. These social constructions are rarely examined, and are given undue significance by pay differentials created under post-Thatcher politics. They are unreal, exaggerated and without good economic foundation. Idiots can be given £1000 an hour, while good, thoughtful, educated people receive £10. The significance of grading is deeply affected by this arbitrary inequality.
6. INDIVIDUALISED EDUCATION. Grading individualises. “Good” schools and universities, whatever they may be, often depend both on good students and teachers. If X had a good teacher Y, who “produces a good result” (for teachers are so assessed) then when X leaves Y, how good is he or she? We do not know. Teachers know that being with a good peer group vastly improves education, through example, discussion, skill development and so on. Really education is deeply corporate, but grades individualize. In the UK many parents buy skilled teachers for their average children.
7. CULTURE AND EDUCATION. Personal cultures and language deeply affect education and what education is. Many are bi or tri lingual, but examined in one language, Whether you are middle class, Islamic, immigrant, Christian,  deeply affects education and attitudes to education. Gender, leisure, worldview, access to cultures shapes educational response and what education should be.
8. PARENTS TEACH THEIR CHILDREN. Parents make a big difference, both in the learning culture which is set up within families and in actual teaching. Music, maths, building, care, historical awareness travels in families. Kids who are “entertained” passively, less easily learn. Parents respect evidence, read and listen, quest for truth, value education or they do not.
9. IS EDUCATION TRUE? A lot of people may learn things which are untrue or questionable. Nationalist history may be false. Evolution as an explanation of pre-biological development is a category mistake. Jane Austin and Shakespeare are questionable. Global warming science was absent for half the population. Neo-classical economics or business studies conclusions may be wrong. They may also not learn things quite central to education. Jesus may be the world’s greatest teacher, but curricula do not reflect that. Tolstoy the greatest novelist, but he is not British. Languages are disappearing from people’s lives to be replaced by computer speak which may change in five years. Education is deeply to be questioned, not marked.
10. EDUCATION AND LIFE. The dominant model for education is now probably acquiring a skill set for a job, but education for like, a vast question in contemporary society, is largely unanswered, and even unaddressed, in much education. It is a bigger and more important issue than ever, and testing largely sits away from it in much of the education system. Arguably, it demands far more attention in the whole educational project than is happening now in the learn and test system.

THE EDUCATIONALISTS ARE AWARE OF MOST OF THESE ISSUES, BUT BIGGER TRENDS ARE UNDERWAY.

This is a formidable list calling into question much of the testing and grading system. Of course, teachers, educationalists, exam boards are aware of most of these issues and address them carefully in their work. Education is self-reflective, questioning and critical. Scientists know that theories come and go and question their paradigms. Exam curricula are part of the complex process of deciding what is important in education. Exam Boards know the limitations of what they do. There are techniques for evaluating grading systems and even teacher assessment systems which have long been discussed and monitored. The Scottish and other responses to the challenges of no exams have been nuanced and careful, and discussed mistakes. Any educated person in the system knows that this is not “science” but aided judgement.   But there are three big issues which now arise which require a different order of response.

1. THE SYSTEM IS UNFAIR. In this individuated educational world lots of students in an educational system with public schools, unequal educational resourcing, a false understanding of educational performance and grossly unequal pay can rightly see this system as unfair, because it is. Certain groups are privileged, coached, have access to the best, get support whenever they need it, have others to work for them and are given every resource. Others in different ethnic groups, ones who are poor, those in certain areas, with certain views, are shut out of this testing promotion system. It is run by Etonian Tories whose educational deficiencies are evident every day, as are their biasses. We have a system of privilege reflecting serious educational mistakes a few decades back and perhaps today. Boris will not discuss privilege, but it is embedded in education and ruining much of it. It must be addressed.
2. MASS MEDIA TRUMPS EDUCATION.  Second, education is being trumped by the mass media, advertising, propaganda, fake news, Facebook, tweets and opinion. As we have seen in the last two elections in the US and the UK, blatant lies win, discussion of manifesto content is sidelined, and the manipulation of people to win elections has become normal. More than this the sheer exposure of the young to the media and advertising  dwarfs educational development. Education has not addressed this massive change. Probably reading ability and practice is plummeting among big sectors of the population. Speaking mat have fallen too. All kinds of changes to the educational matrix of people’s lives have occurred without much public reflection or questioning of what is happening. We discuss grade inflation, but not these far bigger issues.
3. IF THE PLANET IS TO BE SAVED, LIFESTYLE, CULTURE AND ECONOMIC ORGANISATION NEEED TO CHANGE DRASTICALLY. We have maybe five years to modify runaway global warming. Yet education is continuing as if it is business as usual, and as though this league table of educational  attainment is addressing our situation. It is not  and all of us need to undertake a massive re-evaluation of what education is for. This is not happening while we are fixed inside this old model of educational performance and personal career advancement. Of course, political and economic leadership is crucial , but so too is the understanding of what the human race faces.
4. CORONAVIRUS CHALLENGES THE INDIVIDUALISED SYSTEM. The idea of individual educational performance, though it has roots in what we value and need to learn, focusses on individual advancement.   That is what exam takers fasten on. Actually a vast redistribution of work and activity is going on around the world. Perhaps 30% of all work will disappear. Perhaps a similar amount will be relocated to home. Justifying work, for decades a passive process has now become central to redefining the economy and what is necessary for our corporate life. It is a vastly different situation.
5. FINALLY, EDUCATION CAN NOW IN PART GO ON THE WEB. At present we have residential schools, colleges and universities providing  education to select and selected students. Already through textbooks and web teaching this pattern has been breaking down. So, too, has the age at which education is best done in the lifespan, although early learning has many advantages. Now, especially after Coronavirus and Lockdown the best education is potentially available to millions and all kinds of flexible open models of learning are available. Testing takes on a different significance, because it helps us understand what we have learned. Now different systems of funding, viewing the purposes of education, building areas of knowledge and engaging education and work will happen very quickly.

All of these changes require a vast re-evaluation of education, universities, testing and the kind of awareness which education should require. It is time to start discussing these issues now.