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Michael Gove: Whitehall's examiner-in-chief Michael Gove: Whitehall's examiner-in-chief
(4 months later)
There is no denying Michael Gove's energy. Before his first set of test results are in – the consequences of his stampede to convert English secondary schools into academies remain unknown – the education secretary yesterday threw himself into rewriting the exam syllabus. And this effort was itself – as his Labour shadow, Stephen Twigg, teased in the House – arguably a third resit, after previous attempted exam restructures had ran into the buffers.There is no denying Michael Gove's energy. Before his first set of test results are in – the consequences of his stampede to convert English secondary schools into academies remain unknown – the education secretary yesterday threw himself into rewriting the exam syllabus. And this effort was itself – as his Labour shadow, Stephen Twigg, teased in the House – arguably a third resit, after previous attempted exam restructures had ran into the buffers.
If Govian zest has become predictable, the way it is applied is anything but. The trailblazer for Cameronian compassion in opposition became in government the first cabinet minister to go semi-public in saying Britain should quit the EU. His free schools come wrapped in the rhetoric of liberation – removing the dead hand of town halls, empowering educators to get on with the job. But experts always warned against replacing the rules of public accountability with the law of private contract (which is what governs the secretary of state's funding agreements with academies), a change more excited critics branded "totalitarian". That seemed absurd when Mr Gove's favoured refrain was letting freedom ring, but it sounds a bit less silly now that – with his revolution in school structures half complete – he is displaying a newly didactic concern with the exact way things are done in the classroom. Yesterday's "content and assessment objectives" for age 14-16 exams represents another lurch in that direction. There were specific strictures about every child reading an entire Shakespeare play, and every history teacher dedicating 40% of their time to what Mr Gove yesterday called "our island story" – a Churchillian flourish to leave the world in no doubt that the man in the ministry is putting a personal stamp on what youngsters study.If Govian zest has become predictable, the way it is applied is anything but. The trailblazer for Cameronian compassion in opposition became in government the first cabinet minister to go semi-public in saying Britain should quit the EU. His free schools come wrapped in the rhetoric of liberation – removing the dead hand of town halls, empowering educators to get on with the job. But experts always warned against replacing the rules of public accountability with the law of private contract (which is what governs the secretary of state's funding agreements with academies), a change more excited critics branded "totalitarian". That seemed absurd when Mr Gove's favoured refrain was letting freedom ring, but it sounds a bit less silly now that – with his revolution in school structures half complete – he is displaying a newly didactic concern with the exact way things are done in the classroom. Yesterday's "content and assessment objectives" for age 14-16 exams represents another lurch in that direction. There were specific strictures about every child reading an entire Shakespeare play, and every history teacher dedicating 40% of their time to what Mr Gove yesterday called "our island story" – a Churchillian flourish to leave the world in no doubt that the man in the ministry is putting a personal stamp on what youngsters study.
The run of potential labels for the reformed exam has fed the sense of capricious change – the "new O-level" first floated in the Daily Mail stirred thoughts of a lost world of chalk and stern discipline, before whispers of an IGCSE (or was it to have been iGCSE?) promised study for the digital age. News that the old A-G grades, already overhauled once into A*-G, will be replaced by an 8-1 system will achieve no more than confusion. Who knows: if a classical mood seizes Mr Gove, might we get ancient Greek grades, in the style of beta-alpha?The run of potential labels for the reformed exam has fed the sense of capricious change – the "new O-level" first floated in the Daily Mail stirred thoughts of a lost world of chalk and stern discipline, before whispers of an IGCSE (or was it to have been iGCSE?) promised study for the digital age. News that the old A-G grades, already overhauled once into A*-G, will be replaced by an 8-1 system will achieve no more than confusion. Who knows: if a classical mood seizes Mr Gove, might we get ancient Greek grades, in the style of beta-alpha?
The eventual GCSE (England) label is less eye-catching but more sensible – representing continuity with a 25-year-old exam whose quarter century has been far from a failure, with a nod to the semi-federal reality that Wales and Northern Ireland will do things their own way, as Scotland always has. Indeed, after the Lib Dems scotched the retrogressive original plan to bar struggling students from sitting the test without giving any thought to what alternative training they might be offered, parts of the substance of yesterday's proposals were sensible enough. Mr Gove is right that there was a measure of grade inflation under Labour, and also right to query whether this has really done anything more for youngsters than purely inflationary wage rises do workers. He is right, too, that endless modular tests risked turning teachers into spoon-feeders and schools into exam factories, while reducing education to a series of hurdles to be cleared.The eventual GCSE (England) label is less eye-catching but more sensible – representing continuity with a 25-year-old exam whose quarter century has been far from a failure, with a nod to the semi-federal reality that Wales and Northern Ireland will do things their own way, as Scotland always has. Indeed, after the Lib Dems scotched the retrogressive original plan to bar struggling students from sitting the test without giving any thought to what alternative training they might be offered, parts of the substance of yesterday's proposals were sensible enough. Mr Gove is right that there was a measure of grade inflation under Labour, and also right to query whether this has really done anything more for youngsters than purely inflationary wage rises do workers. He is right, too, that endless modular tests risked turning teachers into spoon-feeders and schools into exam factories, while reducing education to a series of hurdles to be cleared.
Where he is wrong, however, is to believe that exclusive reliance on prolonged all-or-nothing written exams will do anything to challenge the narrowing of teaching to the test, particularly when it comes accompanied by obsessive tinkering with top-grade bands. If Mr Gove really wanted to challenge the "cram-and-forget" culture he decries, which is far from clear, he would do better to appeal to universities to look beyond grades in seeking out potential. No means of assessment is perfect – take-home coursework is open to abuse. But for a cohort who will arrive at work with more information in their pocket than Encyclopaedia Britannica ever contained, in the form of a smartphone, it is impossible to believe that the only challenge that should count is the challenge of pitting one's memory against the blank page.Where he is wrong, however, is to believe that exclusive reliance on prolonged all-or-nothing written exams will do anything to challenge the narrowing of teaching to the test, particularly when it comes accompanied by obsessive tinkering with top-grade bands. If Mr Gove really wanted to challenge the "cram-and-forget" culture he decries, which is far from clear, he would do better to appeal to universities to look beyond grades in seeking out potential. No means of assessment is perfect – take-home coursework is open to abuse. But for a cohort who will arrive at work with more information in their pocket than Encyclopaedia Britannica ever contained, in the form of a smartphone, it is impossible to believe that the only challenge that should count is the challenge of pitting one's memory against the blank page.
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