23rd November 2009 9:00
By Blue Tutors
The BBC have reported that Ofqual consider the A-C Science grades awarded by some examining boards in England to be ‘too generous’. Ofqual are the new regulators of qualifications, and had issued guidelines to examining boards based on a ‘lack of challenge’ in some of the 2008 exams.
The examining boards singled out were Edexcel and OCR, both of whom did not appear to challenge their students as much as had been hoped. The other big examining board, AQA, was said to be more in line with the recent guidelines. However, Ofqual did add that the 2009 exams were suitably challenging across the board, but that students taking the Edexcel and OCR boards were advantaged after ‘cashing in’ the results achieved in units from the previous year.
Ofqual have conceded that it will take time to standardise the assessment of Sciences in England, and that their new guidelines have only just begun to allow a direct comparison of grades from two different examining boards. Having said this, Ofqual are confident that the differences between examining boards will have been ‘substantially reduced’ by summer 2010.