Examination of Witnesses (Questions 215-219)
MONDAY 28 OCTOBER 2002
KEN BOSTON,
BEVERLEY EVANS
AND KEITH
WELLER
Chairman
215. Can I welcome Ken Boston to the Committee,
and say, when we met the QCA in May of this year, we were trying
to persuade the then Chairman, Sir William Stubbs, to get on with
getting a new Chief Executive, and we are delighted that, shortly
after that, he succeeded in doing so; so welcome aboard, at a
particularly interesting time in the development of the QCA, so
welcome indeed. And Keith Weller and Beverley Evans we have met
before; but welcome. You have been sitting there listening to
the evidence that we have been taking from the examining boards,
and I hope that that will give you a clue as to the sorts of questions
that we are going to be asking you. We pushed them pretty hard,
in terms of where they were coming from, in terms of their relationship
with the QCA, and there did seem to be a deep ambivalence; on
the one hand, they wanted to work with you, obviously, as a new
broom, a new Chief Executive, a different personality at the helm,
and with the new Chair that has just been announced, but there
was also unease, was there not, about the status, the independence,
the split roles of QCA. Dr Boston, could you tell us how you view
getting the show back on the road; what is your vision of how
you will sort all this out?
(Dr Boston) Well, Mr Chairman, I will start by saying
that I certainly have no magic wand, and I am not at all sure
that the path into the examinations in January and in June will
be smooth; there are some major problems and some major risks
ahead of us. Certainly, we will be able to respond to the Tomlinson
recommendations by the end of November; we will have before us
then better generic statements of standard, we will have a revised
Code of Practice, we will have made considerable progress in getting
specific exemplars from this year's exams, for A2, which we did
not have before, but getting that all understood in time for the
2003 examinations is a big challenge. We also have some enormous
logistical problems ahead of us, in running the examinations.
We have been stretched in the past, or the awarding bodies have
been stretched, to find sufficient examiners; we have this incredible
process where 24 million scripts go round the country in a matter
of weeks. We have little control at the moment, or virtually no
control, but need some control, I believe, on the number of late
entries for examinations; and I am not at all sure, unless we
pull all this together into a better managed system, that we will
not have strife ahead of us again. Now so far as the QCA is concerned,
I think it needs to take a far more directive and management role,
so far as its powers allow, in determining what goes on. I am
not at all sure, for example, that there is real benefit in having
awarding bodies able to take slightly different, but nevertheless
significant, approaches to implementation of the Code of Practice.
I am not at all sure, at the moment, until we have done further
work, that we might not run into trouble with one awarding body,
or several, again. All of these things urgently need to be attended
to. Now so far as the QCA is concerned, as the independent regulator,
it needs to have the authority and the credibility to be able
to make statements publicly about the state of the examination
system, be believed, and have the power to fix it; it needs, in
my view, to have some degree of greater distance from Government.
I do not believe that there has been any evidence of Government
interference in standards, or in the work of the QCA, or in the
work of awarding bodies, but if it is to be a credible public
authority there needs to be the appearance of independence. The
other side of that is, there needs to be greater distance, I think,
too, between Government and the awarding bodies. If I were here
to regulate a financial market, a market in financial services,
I would expect the providers of financial services to be totally
at arm's length from Government, and for the regulator to bridge
the distance between them. Similarly, there must be, in my view,
conspicuously, clear blue water between the awarding bodies and
Government, and the bridge across that is the regulator; now that
is not conspicuously apparent at the moment. I believe the QCA
has acted independently, from my reading of all the documentation,
and, believe me, my mind has been concentrated wonderfully on
the documentation over the past few weeks. I do not believe there
is evidence of political interference or pressure on QCA. I see
no evidence, but I take Mr Tomlinson's report, of pressure from
the QCA on the awarding bodies. But it is clear that the independence
of the organisation is not transparently there, it is not unambiguously
accepted, and it needs to be, in a far stronger and clearer way.
216. Would you like to see it on parallel lines
with Ofsted?
(Dr Boston) I think Ofsted is a very good model in
the education area, yes. There are other models of regulators,
I guess, both here and overseas, in completely different sectors,
in my home country, for example, in the transport sector, the
financial services sector; there is not in the education sector
because education, in the states where I worked, in Australia,
is not run on the basis of a competitive market between organisations,
competing on the basis of not of price but quality of service.
217. Let us just probe you a little bit though.
You are saying, you, the QCA, should be the bridge between the
awarding bodies and Government; what is the relationship, as you
perceive it, and has been, between the awarding bodies and the
Department then?
(Dr Boston) There seems to be, from the evidence I
see, quite close contact between DfES (the Department for Education
and Skills) officials and individual officers in awarding bodies,
at a variety of levels and for a variety of purposes, all of which,
I am sure, are benign. But, nevertheless, in a situation where
there is a regulator, I believe that relationship is not a desirable
one.
Jonathan Shaw
218. You described a situation that is going
to require QCA to undertake a considerable amount of work to restore
public confidence. When you applied for the job and you had the
interview, what did QCA, Sir William Stubbs, say to you, "This
is a well-oiled machine," or "We're in a hell of a mess"?
(Dr Boston) The reason I became interested in the
job was because the QCA does have a very high international profile.
It is the international benchmark, as a qualifications and curriculum
authority, far broader than simply something concerned with A
level examinations. There are, in fact, 117 different awarding
bodies, many of them, the majority of them, by far, in the vocational
area. Qualifications and curriculum authorities have been introduced
in many western countries fundamentally for the purpose of maintaining
standards, enhancing standards and responding to the workforce
skills needs of the countries in which they operate, the building
of social and human capital; that is the job that I came to do.
I also came to manage the operation. Now I have walked into the
situation where I find, since taking up the position ( which I
took up on 12 September, but, being here in August, just privately,
watching the examination system and the results come out) that
a whole new set of priorities have emerged, as a result of this
real problem that has occurred with the A level examinations,
and which is the product of a series of mistakes made by Government,
by QCA, by awarding bodies, and a lack of common understanding
across the country about what standards are and how they are determined,
and we have seen that lack of understanding in here today. Here
is a real problem that needs to be addressed; and that is my task,
to take that on. I am simply saying, there is no magic solution
here, it is a long, hard row ahead of us, and I can give no guarantees,
except the capacity to point the organisation in the right direction,
work with the awarding bodies and Government and the headteacher
association and teacher associations to try to get it right.
219. You have been fairly direct, in response
to the Chairman's questions about how you see the organisation
should be set up; are you going to continue to be as direct, if
Government makes recommendations, or you make recommendations
to Government and they do not accept them, will you stay?
(Dr Boston) The job is that of a regulator, I report
to a board, the board is appointed by the Secretary of State,
but it would seem to me that the QCA is an organisation outside
the Civil Service per se, it is a non-departmental public
body, it is there to maintain and defend and protect standards,
it is there to guard standards, it is the watchdog, and the watchdog
occasionally must bark.
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