by Trevor Fisher
FOR the second year in succession, media comment on the summer’s A Level results has concentrated on an alleged gap between state and independent schools in terms of improvements in the numbers of those attaining the top grades. This year, the supposed gap has been described against the background of an IPSOS/MORI opinion poll in June showing that a majority of parents would opt to send their children for private education if they were able to do so.
Government officials have again dismissed any differences in public and private sector A Level results, claiming that state schools are actually outperforming independent ones. Either these officials are correct and press reports have been disingenuous or the independent sector is pulling ahead.
Certainly, the Government has embraced a market economy in education. So if the independent sector is more successful, the implications for state education are grave.
According to newspaper reports, while grades rose for the 25th consecutive year, with 25 per cent of students gaining at least one grade A, over the past five years (2002-2007), the proportion of A grades had risen by 6.5 per cent in selective and independent schools, while in comprehensives the figure is only 3 per cent. One exam chief has pointed to these statistics to counter claims that examinations are getting easier.
But this argument is spurious and irrelevant to the issue in question. Exams may well be getting easier, as the rise in the number of A grades suggests, but this is not the damaging factor for state education. We need to ask whether selective schools really do better at A Level and, if so, why this is the case.
In August, the Joint Committee on Qualifications stated that the number of those getting an A Grade at A Level rose to 25.9 per cent of the total passing the exam, while the gap between the state and private sectors and regionally between the deprived north and the wealthy south was referred to for the first time. On the increase in the number of A grades, the JCQ noted that those in the independent sector increased by 9.1 per cent from 2002 to 2008, while those in comprehensive schools increased by 3.9 per cent.
The Department for Children, Schools and Families’ official line is that comprehensive schools have been improving faster than the independent sector over the past five years. “This year the number of A grades increased by nearly 10,000 and the majority of those, more than three quarters, went to pupils in state maintained schools.”
However, since 93 per cent of pupils are in the state sector, if 25 per cent of A grades went to the 7 per cent of pupils in the independent sector, of course the majority will be in the state sector. It is the rate of increase which is crucial. We need the facts. This issue cannot be dealt with by polemics.
Trevor Fisher is head of history at a further education college
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