to fund ‘education other than elementary’ and this resulted in two types of state-aided secondary school:
.
.
The
1944 Education Act created the
tri-partite education system in which children were
streamed into Grammar Schools, Technical Schools and Secondary Modern Schools.
Public examinations were introduced in the
mid-nineteenth century following requests from independent and grammar schools for
Oxford and Cambridge to set a
junior examination for sixteen-year-olds and a
senior examination for eighteen-year-olds. Gowned ‘presiding examiners’ arrived with sealed boxes at schools and church halls across the land. The exams which were
sat by only a tiny minority of the population,
largely tested candidates’ memories: names of monarchs, dates of battles, biblical verses, scientific facts (1).
Arguments about the validity of grades go back a long way: in
1872 one headteacher wrote to The Times complaining that the Cambridge exams were easier than the Oxford ones (2).
From 1918 the Oxford and Cambridge examinations were replaced by a
School Certificate to be taken at
sixteen and a
Higher School Certificate at
eighteen. The
School Certificate required pupils to pass a
group of subjects to obtain a certificate. At this time,
most pupils remained at elementary school after age eleven and
left school at fourteen without any formal qualifications. Even when working-class children passed the
‘scholarship’ tests (a
limited precursor to the 11+; the
local authority paid the secondary school fees of those who passed), their
parents often couldn’t afford the uniform.
The
United Kingdom School Certificate was an educational attainment standard
qualification, established in
1918 by the
Secondary Schools Examinations Council (SSEC).
The School Certificate Examination was usually taken at
age 16. Performance in each subject was graded as:
Fail, Pass, Credit or Distinction. Students had to gain
six passes including English and mathematics to obtain a certificate. To obtain a "
matriculation exemption" one had to obtain at least a Credit in five subjects including English, mathematics, science and a language. Those who failed could retake the examination. Some students who passed then stayed on at school to take the
Higher School Certificate at age
18.
The
Higher School Certificate (HSC) was an educational attainment standard qualification in England and Wales, established by the
Secondary Schools Examination Council (SSEC). The Higher School Certificate Examination (HSCE) was usually taken at age
18, or two years after the
School Certificate. It was
abolished when
A-levels were introduced in
1951. The
HSC made it compulsory to study a
broader range of subjects, even though some students were strong in either the sciences or the arts and humanities. When
A-Levels were introduced, pupils could study a
narrower range of subjects in depth, chosen according to their strengths.
The
Norwood Committee on curriculum and examinations in secondary schools during
WW2 discussed the
extension of secondary education, which would involve
changes in the exam system. The advantages and disadvantages of public exams were well understood. The
Norwood Report (1943) summarises arguments offered for and against: exams are said to
motivate pupils, provide teachers with a
syllabus and give an
objective measure of achievement, but it was also argued that they
dictate the curriculum, invite children to view education simply as passing exams, encourage cramming and uniformity, and
neglect the knowledge teachers acquire of the pupils in their class over time. The committee
recommended that the School Certificate be replaced by
separate subject exams, and, that after a
transitional period, the exams should be
set internally in schools by the teachers. With the exception of the CSE Mode 3 (described below), this ‘transitional period’
never gave way to the practice of internally set examinations. In contrast, teachers across much of Germany set the pre-university Abitur until recently.
After the war, as a result of the
1944 Education Act, all pupils received secondary education, but in
different types of schools according to their results in the 11+ tests. For many years the vast majority, attending secondary modern schools, left before the age of sixteen without any formal qualifications. The
new General Certificate of Education O (‘ordinary’)-level was almost exclusively taken by pupils attending
grammar schools. However, in the early stages of the long campaign for comprehensive schools,
some pupils who had
failed the 11+ and had gone to
secondary moderns were
entered for the O-level and passed.
The School Certificate was
abolished after the
GCE O-Level was introduced in 1951. The School Certificate also existed in a number of
Commonwealth countries such as Australia and Singapore at various times.
