Your paper rightly criticised universities for "not differentiating between the rigorous GCSEs compulsory in the state system" and "less demanding" IGCSEs taken in the private sector, but the fact that the newly reformed A-levels are also being avoided in many independent schools is strangely ignored (Easier exams benefit private school pupils, 25.08.19). If the priority is, as the chair of the Commons education select committee says, "a level playing field", the reasons private schools are opting for Pre-U examinations have to be investigated. That these examinations are run by Cambridge Assessment, which is also responsible for IGCSEs, makes the matter rather more pressing, as does the fact that they are mostly set and marked by teachers in the independent sector. Are privately educated pupils so much brighter that something like over 60% of those entered for Pre-Us can expect A*/A grades, compared to 25.5% for A-levels?
In the academic year 2017-18,there were 125 Oxbridge undergraduates with three or more Pre-U qualifications but no A-levels, and 1075 students with a combination of three or more A-level and Pre-U qualifications. After the Guardian-exposed cheating scandal of 2017, both the head of Eton and CEO of Cambridge Assessment were briefly questioned about examinations by the Commons education select committee, so one wonders why it has taken so long for Halfon and Powell to conclude that "those in private schools" have an "unfair advantage"! It certainly looks like more answers are now needed, and the committee could start by asking the following:
If Pre-U exams are not easier than A-levels, why do so many private schools and some high-achieving state schools favour them?
How many of last year`s Pre-U examinations were set/marked by teachers currently working in the private sector? Eton`s head admitted at least seven of his staff were involved in 2017. Are measures in place to ensure examination topics and questions are as difficult to predict as those at A-level?
One would hope, if there is to be "public trust in the examination system" as Ofqual`s chair desires, that checks are made to ensure an A* graded Pre-U exam paper is of the same standard as an A* A-level paper, demonstrating the same level of skills, knowledge, and detailed analysis and accuracy? My FoI request to Ofqual revealed that there are "additional rules for A-levels", as they, unlike Pre-Us, are "national qualifications based on content set by the government". These rules are called Subject Level Conditions,with Condition H3 for example, insisting that all awarding organisations, when setting a level of attainment, review "similar qualifications made available by other awarding organisations" to promote consistency. Presumably, this is not required of Pre-Us?
Having privately educated pupils competing with students from underfunded and understaffed state schools for the same university places is obviously unfair, but allowing the former to qualify using a different entry route simply compounds the problem!
