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The ONLY weekly voice for secondary education Issue 216 • June 11 2009 Price £1.00
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Ofqual threatens
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With the launch of
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teachers are now reading
to cap exam fees
the newspaper electronically
every Thursday. You can sign
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address. It is completely free of widely used examinations had However, as thousands of stu- as a whole and promised it would Ofqual has now called for fur-
and we will not pass on your
by Chris Parr
increased by more than inflation dents throughout the UK sit their use its powers to cap fees “if nec- ther work to be done in order to
details to third parties. Just
over a number of years. exams, senior leaders from schools essary”. understand the factors contributing
email editor@sec-ed.co.uk
Headteachers are growing To compile the report, which have been contacting SecEd and Paul Scutt, headteacher at Bishop to total fees paid by centres, such
increasingly worried about the did not look at GCSEs or A levels, expressing concern about the fees Fox’s School in Somerset, told as changes in the number of learn-
amount of their school’s budget Ofqual researchers used a combi- involved in the exams process as SecEd that the development of new ers taking the qualifications, and
that is being swallowed up by the nation of surveys, meetings and a whole. “more costly” exams, along with the number of qualifications per
cost of qualifications. case studies to assess a market In response to these comments, the increase in resit costs brought learner.
It comes as a report from the that includes around 8,000 mainly Ofqual told SecEd this week that it about by modular courses, meant Chris Dunne, headteacher at
qualifications regulator Ofqual vocational qualifications offered by would be seeking to increase the that exam budgets at his school had Langdon Park Community School
showed that fees for a number more than 130 awarding bodies. transparency of the fees structure “mushroomed” in recent years. in London, told us that exam costs
He said: “The drive to raise had been one of the fastest-grow-
standards often means that schools ing areas of the school’s budget for
foot the bill for resits where stu- some years, and had been rising
dents have underachieved first time “well above the rate of inflation”.
around. We now face the pros- In a letter to SecEd, he said: “We
pect of a huge investment in new spend £65,000 on exam fees alone,
Global links resources which complement the compared with a figure about only
new ‘controlled’ assessments. twice that for books and other learn-
Our fortnightly international
“The worry here is that we can- ing materials.
page focuses on the exciting not afford to disadvantage our stu- “The income we have received
global partnerships of one
dents by not providing the new from the government has been at a
Essex school, and also looks
resources which will no doubt sup- reasonable level, and we have not
at what schemes and funds
port their efforts to achieve.” had to make any decisions regard-
He added: “This is a real cottage ing choice of syllabus or individual
are out there to support links
industry, which means that funding students’ entries on the grounds of
Page 19
inevitably switches in school budg- cost alone.
ets from teaching and learning to “However, I fully expect that if
assessment and accreditation. Even funding is not maintained at these
someone of limited intelligence will levels we will be doing exactly
recognise that this is an odd way to that.”
raise achievement.” An Ofqual spokeswoman told
The Ofqual report, which con- SecEd: “One of our key objectives
tained 33 case studies of qualifi- through all our work is to increase
cations from 15 awarding organ- transparency, and this report is a
isations, concluded that the fees significant move towards greater
charged for the selected qualifica- transparency about fees and costs.
tions had increased by “just a little “Ofqual works to check that
ContactPoint more than inflation”, while it said standards are maintained and that
that many awarding organisations the qualifications developed con-
The government’s new
did not structure their accounts in a tinue to engage and challenge a
database to help professionals way that enabled direct comparison full range of learners. In future, we
working with children to
between fees and costs for single expect to have statutory respon-
share information quickly and
qualifications. This, it said, meant it sibility to secure value for money
efficiently has launched. We
was “unlikely that the fees charged and efficiency in the qualifications
Crime scene: Students in south London were praised for their reactions this week in by these awarding organisations for market. This will allow us to keep
explain how it will work
the aftermath of a savage early morning assault and robbery. The teenagers were individual qualifications directly the level of all fees under review
Page 7
charged with investigating and solving the shocking crime. Find out more on page 2 reflect the costs incurred” by the and, if necessary, we will use our
school or college. powers to cap fees.”
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