Tories plan exam standards checks

The Conservative Party is promising to link exams in England to an international benchmark to ensure standards are maintained.

Shadow schools secretary Michael Gove says the move would "reverse the devaluation of exams".

He will say the watchdog Ofqual would be given a statutory duty to guarantee exams and pass marks were comparable with the world's best.

The government said the UK already had an internationally renowned curriculum.

Ofqual said it "strongly believed" it should have powers to direct exam boards if it felt standards were at risk.

The Tories noted the way that Ofqual instructed one of the big English exam boards, AQA, to lower the grade C pass mark in one of its science GCSEs this summer to bring it into line with other boards.

AQA chief executive Mike Cresswell reluctantly agreed to do so "on balance and under protest".

But he said: "Ofqual needs to be given an explicit statutory power to enable it, if necessary, to direct an awarding body to set standards at a particular level."

He said: "It needs to have this power so that it can give credible public assurance that standards are comparable between awarding bodies and maintained over time."

Source: BBC News