Memorandum submitted by the Assessment
and Qualifications Alliance (AQA) (QCA 18)
We understand that the Committee is investigating
the work of QCA and that we have been asked to attend today to
contribute evidence towards that investigation.
We have made a written submission to the Committee
which highlights a number of issues, but particularly the difficulties
which we believe can arise from the current mixing within QCA
of its regulatory function and its own activity as a test developer.
However, in the light of the recent events concerning
A-level examinations, which have put a particular spotlight upon
QCA, we feel that it might help the Committee if we very briefly
set out AQA's position on that matter.
AQA believes strongly that examination boards
should be close to the community they serve. AQA's Council and
committees consist of individuals drawn from the educational and
employment communities. AQA invites organisations such as the
Teacher Unions and Subject Associations, Universities UK, LEA
Chief Officer Association, CBI and TUC to make their own nominations.
AQA exists solely to serve the public and in particular the students
who take its examinations. Our only objective it to ensure that
our specifications and examinations are of the highest quality
and that AQA awards reliable grades which represent a consistent
standard across options and across years.
Everybody associated with AQA is fully committed
to this objective because we are deeply aware of the great importance
of the qualifications which we issue to the futures of the young
people who take our examinations.
AQA therefore understands very well the strain
which candidates, their teachers and parents have been put under
by recent events. For this reason, although we were, and we remain,
confident about our own procedures and standards, we willingly
co-operated with the Tomlinson Inquiry at all stages. We believed
that it was vital to address rapidly the doubts which existed
in the public mind that the 2002 awarding process had not been
entirely fair to candidates.
Having examined the records of our awarding
process, Mike Tomlinson asked us to review just two out of the
1,008 awarding decisions which we made in the summer in order
to issue a total of 752,258 individual candidate results for AS
and A-level examinations. The review meetings, which were attended
by Mike Tomlinson himself as well as independent observers from
the teacher associations and QCA, upheld both of our original
decisions. Not a single candidate therefore had to be re-graded
by AQA as a result of the Tomlinson Inquiry.
As our ready cooperation with the Tomlinson
Inquiry shows, AQA takes an open and transparent approach to all
its work. At no time were we influenced by any external pressure
or agency to act differently this year when awarding grades. We
followed our normal awarding procedures which conform fully to
the QCA Code of Practice. We are confident that those procedures
are appropriate and that they were operated in an entirely professional
and transparent way this year. The fact that none of our 752,258
published results had to be changed as a result of the Tomlinson
Inquiry shows that our confidence is well placed.[1]
October 2002
1 Ev pp. 1-26 as published in Qualifications and
Curriculum Authority Minutes of Evidence 15 July 2002, Session
2001-02, HC 862-i. Back
| 
