A breathtaking mix of incompetence and inertia

The minutes of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority board meeting on the 21st of May have just been published and they show a complete failure by the board to engage with the Sats crisis. This meeting occurred just after David Laws, the Lib Dem education spokesman, had questioned Ed Balls in the Commons about the “shambles that we have seen over the past couple of weeks in the marking of 1.2 million key stage 2 and key stage 3 test papers”. But the minutes record that David Gee, the acting managing director of the National Assessment Agency, informed the board that: 

“the school experience had been good; that there had been no criticism on the content of the tests; and that process changes were implemented this year to reduce burden on schools. ETS in their first year responsible for the marking of the tests have had some difficulties in support for the 10,000 markers. Although the marker training content was improved on previous years the logistics for the training of markers, delayed script delivery and over busy helplines has frustrated markers. National Assessment Agency staff are working closely with ETS staff to ensure smoother operations going forward.”

Gee told the board an update would be offered at the July 16th board meeting. The meeting then moved onto discuss other matters. This is quite incredible considering that questions had already been asked in Parliament about the matter and the BBC was already reporting that various people—including markers—had contacted it warning of the problems to come.

It is becoming clear that the whole educational standards bureaucracy is simply not fit for purpose.  Heads will almost certainly end up rolling at the end of this, if only to protect Ed Balls, but it would be ridiculous if those who could not spot how serious a problem was developing on their watch were to receive golden parachutes. These people are already paid handsome salaries–the managing director of the National Assessment Agency earned £185,00 in 2006-07 and the chief executive of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority £190,000–and they should not be rewarded with more of our money for failing.