When failure actually counts as success

Michael Gove’s latest prognosis for schools was delivered at a lunch in Westminster yesterday, but it’s important enough to repeat the morning after. The Independent has a full report here, but the key quotation is this:

’Education is like trying to run up a down escalator. There are some uncomfortable decisions that will have to be taken. There will be years when, because we are going to make exams tougher, the number of people passing will fall. There are headteachers who have been peddling the wrong sort of approach to teaching for too long, who are going to lose their jobs.’

Just read that bit again: ‘the number of people passing will fall’. It’s a deeply encouraging admission by Gove, and one that he ought to repeat frequently. One corollary of making the exams system more rigorous has to be an increase in failures. Insofar as it reflects an increase in standards, this ought to be welcomed.

There are, of course, those who won’t welcome Mr Gove’s words and prescriptions. The Independent article cites the head of one teaching union, saying that, ‘We are very concerned about the negative image ministers are giving of the education service and how it seems that one criticism follows the other.’ But the harsh truth is that the education secretary has the facts on his side. Professor Robert Coe, the head of Durham University’s ongoing evaluation of exam standards, recently explained that:

’We have seen candidates with the same level of ability awarded A-levels about a tenth of a grade higher every year since 1988. This inflation seems to have continued up to the latest round of results, taken in 2011.’

And that’s quite aside from how the UK has dropped down international league tables for education; or the terrible gap in performance between our state and private schools.

Grade inflation is real and it is poisonous. It affects everyone from those with top grades, who find it harder to distinguish themselves, to those without, who might be pushed towards degree courses that they neither really want nor need. As with Incapacity Benefit, we should be particularly glad that the government appears to be making the politically brave choice here — and accepting less flattering outcomes as the cost of genuine success.