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A-Level pass rate shoots up more than usual

By Simon Dodd & Joe Rukin

Pass rates for A-level students have risen by 4.5% this year, to 94.3%, while the proportion of students getting Grade A passes topped 20%. To put that figure in perspective, for most of the 1990s, the pass rate rose at an average of a little higher than 1% per annum. The highest ever previous rise was 1.8%. If this upsurge is to continue, in just two years A-levels will join GCSEs as the exam that no-one fails. This above-average rise follows the government's shakeup of the A-level system last year, and will provoke renewed speculation on the success of those reforms. The AS level which has allowed students to get 'half points' for UCAS entry has also made sure that students who would have been borderline in some A Level subjects have not taken them, helping the national stats, but with the purpose of defending each individual schools' place in the league tables, and hence their funding. In all, 6%, or 44769 less A-Levels were taken this year.

A rise in the pass rate is hardly newsworthy any more. Since caps on the numbers who could receive top grades were removed in 1982, pass rates have gone up every single one of the 19 years since then. The 'story' has remained the same: the government (whichever Party happens to be in it) claims that this is a result of its successful education policy, while cynics and detractors clamor that exams must be getting easier. But such a sharp rise could hardly escape comment.

Take, for example, Her Majesty's former (huzzah!!) Chief Detractor of Schools, departed OFSTED chief Chris Woodhead, here responding to the suggestion that government and exam boards wish to drive failure out of the system: "The prospect that every student might pass makes a mockery of the function of exams to differentiate between pupils"
Or we could alternatively listen to the institute of directors' Ruth Lea: "Young people seem to know less than they did 20 or 30 years ago"
But most of all, I think we need someone who we can trust to tell us the unswerving truth. Tell us, Stephen Twigg, (my hasn't he done well since being NUS president?) are exams getting easier, or is the government department of which you're a minister doing a good job? "This shows that investment in education is paying off".

Well, that's alright then, isn't it. UCaS figures also show that the numbers of students being accepted into universities this year will be around the 227,000 mark; needless to say, given the cuts in University places being caused by course closures around the country, this will increase competition for University places - and remember, competition is good for society. Well, for the winners, anyway.

But how exactly do universities determine winners when the grades say there is not a cigarette paper to put between them? With 20.7% of students getting A Grades, and most of them certain to have had A*s at GCSE, how on earth is a University meant to differentiate between them? For example, the soon-to-be haunt of Euan Blair, Bristol University got 1,800 applicants for 65 places in English this year, and with over 900 of them predicted three As at A-level, admissions tutors may just as well get out a pin.

That itself may be more desirable than reality, as Adam Fox pointed out in his Guardian column exactly what happens when you has an admissions selection procedure which cannot use academic achievement as it's main criteria. He points out
"Certain courses will typically attract between 25 and 30 applicants for every one. The problem thus becomes one of trying to decide which one of the 13 or so "straight A" applicants for each place is going to be successful. There are different strategies around the country for coping with this nightmare and it varies not only between universities but also from department to department within them. Interviewing is the final stage of the most thorough and rigorous of the procedures, although one which involves academic staff in a huge burden of work to be fitted in around other duties and commitments. And even this system has its critics who say it favours applicants form private schools who have had the coaching necessary to do well in such situations. This, it is suggested, is a major reason why almost 50% of students at Oxford and Cambridge, and around a third at other leading universities, such as St Andrews, Durham or Manchester, hail from an independent sector that educates only 7% of our schoolchildren."

The road to get to university this year was filled with other potholes again this year as the annual series of cock-ups proliferated the system. In Scotland, 10,000 Highers students were incorrectly awarded points entitling them to a university place. The Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA), after their previous disaster, was keen to push the blame onto UCAS, who they claim had interpreted 'borderline fails' (48/49%) as C's, meaning students got University acceptance letters based on incorrect marks, then the following day got their real exam results, and places were withdrawn. About 2,000 students in England got estimated instead of actual A-Level grades because an exam board, the Assessment and Qualifications Alliance, had failed to mark all their work on time. There was also the usual sprinkling of papers which were lost in the post and just to top things off, there was also a power cut which shut down UCAS for a day in clearing week!

But it seems the whole palaver of taking exams is a waste of time anyway, after a Daily telegraph journalist managed to secure a degree place quite easily with no A-levels whatsoever. The journalist, posing as a student who admitted failing all his A-levels and having just two AS levels in the bag, managed to get accepted on BA Sociology courses at the University of East London and the University of Greenwich. Three other institutions were more cautious in offering the applicant a foundation year to start off with, but at Portsmouth University, the reporter was told to remove the failed A-level from the application form, being told;
"I have just spoken to the supervisor and what I have done on the form is I have scrubbed out the two A-levels at an F and just left the two AS-levels. We can offer you a place on the Extended Engineering course,"

But according to a study by Dylan Wiliam and Paul Black, professors at King's college, London, there may be a case for accepting students with no A-levels at all as there is only a small correlation between A-Level grades and doing well at University. They compared students degree results to A-levels and found that 40% of the time, the student with worse A-levels would get the better degree. Prof Wiliam said;
"If you get bad grades at A-level, it doesn't mean you can't benefit from university. If you get good grades, it doesn't guarantee you an easy passage. Whether standards are going up or down is not the issue - standards have been broadly maintained. The problem is that we don't know how accurate examination grades are for individual students, and they are of only limited use as predictors of future performance. Such data as there are indicates that we would pick the better student only 60% of the time - 40% of the time, the student with worse A-level grades would do better at university."

At the same time, high street computer retailer PC World has announced the results of a survey it carried out during the A-level period, which asked pupils what the best way to raise their grades was. "Making the most of computer resources" recieved a higher rating than "attending lectures", "paying more attention in class" and "reading books", ultimmately finishing a close second to "more revision". While this will no doubt raise interest in the debate about computers in Education (as reported earlier this year, for example, some institutions in America now exclusively use e-mail to set and submit assignments), we - beastly cynics that we are - have to take with a pinch (or perhaps a kilo) of salt any survey carried out by an overpriced IT Vendor that suggests that the best thing for education is for students - already cash-strapped - to buy more computers.

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30th August 2002
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