Observer letters on grade inflation

Catherine Bennett writes that, unlike their US counterparts, "UK universities are low on dependable side doors", but fails to mention, as do Kynaston and Green in their excellent book on private education, a somewhat dubious but increasingly common  method of getting pupils into our universities  (Americans really pay a bribe for good education? In Britain we`ve got far subtler ways, 17.03.19). Rather than entering pupils for the newly reformed and more rigorous A-levels, examinations described by Ofqual as "national examinations based on content set by the government", schools in the independent sector increasingly prefer Cambridge Assessment`s Pre-U examinations. Set and marked mostly by private school teachers, more lightly regulated than A-levels, without the requirement to follow Ofqual`s "additional rules" which, for example, require comparison with similar qualifications when setting a grade level, and allowed to use pupils` coursework as part of the final assessment, Pre-Us` proportion of A*/A grades is unsurprisingly far higher than that for A-levels. Coursework was seen by Gove as a main reason for public examinations` grade inflation, and recently described by the Ofsted chief inspector to the education select committee as a vehicle for "mark collection"!

The fact that some state schools, no doubt fearful of an Ofsted inspection being over-critical of results, are also by-passing A-levels in this way, suggests that Pre-U exams are an easier option, just like Cambridge Assessment`s IGCSEs. If these exams do not constitute a "dependable side door", I don`t know what does!

Professor Beer of Universities UK is right to warn against politicians "confusing grade inflation with student and teaching improvement" in British universities (Top universities told: cut first-class degrees or be fined, 24.03.19). Tory secretaries of state for education have a habit of questioning any signs of examination results` improvement with a knee-jerk reaction to the right, raising suspicions about the real value of the grades. Michael Gove in 2010 did just that; clearly worried that GCSE and A-level results in state schools were equalling, and in some cases, surpassing those achieved in the private sector, he made changes to the methods of assessment  to increase their "rigour".

       Anyone with any experience in education would have been able to predict the effects of the government`s higher education policy, especially the increases both of unconditional offers and first-class degrees, with universities desperate to get "bums on seats", but ignoring teaching improvements and "students working harder than ever" is typical of Tory myopia. Why is there no indignation from Hinds about the grade inflation which is so obviously apparent in the examinations most private schools now prefer to GCSE and A-levels? 
Cambridge Assessment’s IGCSE and Pre-U examinations both allow pupils’ coursework, which the head of Ofqual recently described to the education select committee as a vehicle for “mark collection”. Could private schools’ increasing preference for Pre-U examinations, rather than A-levels, have something to do with them being more lightly regulated, having no requirement to follow Ofqual’s “additional rules” which, for example, require comparison with similar qualifications when setting a grade level, and being largely set and marked by teachers in the independent sector? 
Defenders of this two-tiered system will claim the high ability of the Pre-U entrants as the reason, but the British public have been fed the right-wing propaganda that private school pupils are brighter for long enough. If they really have more ability, why enter them for the easier option in the first place?