Exams Marking Fiasco

The American firm, ETS, was awarded a £154 million, five-year contract (though some confusion here - is it three or five years?) to mark school tests for 11 and 14-year-olds. This is the first year of its operation and it is proving a disaster.

Sats Company Faces Bill Over Delay.


ETS Europe - The Company Behind The Marking Fiasco

English schoolchildren are tested more than any other pupils in the world. This idiotic system, introduced first by the Tories in the 1980s and cretinously embellished by New Labour after them, has spawned a multimillion pound industry. It has also proved stressful, pointless and against the educational interests of children.

When chaps such as I went to school back in the Dark Ages of decent education, pupils were tested at the end of each year by the school and marked by their teachers. I suppose the crude premise was that since your teachers were teaching you day in, day out, for years, they had a pretty good idea of how well you were doing. Results were made known to the parties involved and did not contribute to a ridiculous league table system. Teachers did the marking as part of their work and no money was paid out to external companies or individuals.

The simplest, most reasonable and most equitable system - and the cheapest - would be to abolish all such modern testing in its entirety and revert to the earlier set-up: external marking only for GCSEs and A-levels.

It is appalling that private companies (whether flying under the 'non-profit' flag or not) should be raking in public money for a pointless activity, and doing it so badly.