GCSE and A-level `getting easier'

EXAM standards may be falling, Chris Woodhead, the Chief Inspector of Schools said yesterday.

In GCSE English exams, ministers must address the question of whether grammar and punctuation were being sacrificed because pupils were being taught more knowledge, he argued.

Mr Woodhead made his controversial suggestion in his annual lecture at the Royal Society of Arts in London. He appeared to contradict statements by ministers after last summer's GCSE and A-level exams, saying that standards have remained the same for the last 20 years.

He said that an inquiry carried out last year by government exam advisers and his Office for Standards in Education had found no evidence that exams had become easier over the last two decades.

But the inquiry into maths, English and chemistry had not, he emphasised, given GCSE and A-levels "a clean bill of health". It had not come to definite conclusions because the exam boards had not been able to produce enough examples of past scripts.

Instead, it had raised questions about whether broader syllabuses had led to poorer grammar and spelling.

"I can of course understand why some find it easier to sweep such issues under the carpet. To raise the possibility that examinations may not be as demanding today as they were 20 years ago is to call into question the reality of the inexorable rise in achievement the examination statistics seem year by year to suggest.

The qualifications and Curriculum Authority last night issued a robust rebuttal of Mr Woodhead's remarks. It said it had carried out inquiries into four more subjects at GCSE and five at A level since the previous investigation.