Sunday 27 October 2019

Pre-U Scandal: full article

With private schools` abolition now gaining increased support, there is yet another aspect of their provision which needs close examination. Some of the press have taken notice of the fact that most schools in the independent sector have chosen to ignore the newly reformed GCSE examinations, preferring, for obvious reasons, IGCSE examinations, for their already highly privileged pupils. What is being ignored, however, is that A-Level examinations, the accepted route into higher education for nearly all state school students, are also being avoided.

Three FoI requests have revealed that, whilst there is much less regulation involved, pupils entering the examinations preferred by private schools have almost three times as much chance of getting A*/A grades than from A-Level entry!

The recent scandal involving examination-cheating at Eton and Winchester revealed the existence of examinations taken by privately-educated students, equivalent to A-Levels but not the same, and whose grades are recognised by universities as entrance qualifications. Called Pre-Us, they include questions set by teachers in the private sector.

The exams are run by Cambridge Assessment International Education (CAIE), a part of Cambridge University. Answering questions before the Commons’ Select Committee on Education in 2017, Simon Henderson, the headmaster of Eton, admitted that seven of his staff set papers for exams taken by their own pupils. It was further revealed that CAIE is not a member of the Joint Council for Qualifications, the organisation which is responsible for examination regulations and inspections. The exams watchdog, Ofqual do not even include the CAIE when reporting on malpractice! Not one member of the Committee thought it necessary to delve deeper and ask why a clutch of elite public schools prefer Pre-U exams to A-Levels.

On the Pre-U website, Winchester College recommends these examinations because they ‘are very liberating for teachers’. Certainly, they ‘liberate’ staff from the indignity of their students’ results being compared to those achieved by state school students in like-for-like conditions. Having taught A-Levels for over forty years in such comparatively unliberated institutions, I knew nothing about the existence of such examinations, and I doubt if many teachers in state schools realise that their students are competing for top grades and university places with privately-educated pupils whose grades are earned according to different standards. 

An FOI request to the Department of Education for a breakdown of 2017’s Pre-U results, subject by subject, enables a comparison with A-Level results. History was the most popular Pre-U examination with independent schools, with 745 pupils entered for this rather than A-Level. Of those, 451 were awarded distinctions, the equivalent of A*/A grades; that’s 60.5%, compared to 23.4% gaining the same grades at A-Level. For English Literature, 74.9% received the equivalent of A*/A 
grades at Pre-U, compared to the A-Level percentage of 24.8%. The Physics figures were 65.8% compared to 29.6%, Maths 67.7% as opposed to 41.8%. In the less popular subjects, the percentages of top grades were even more remarkable, with an attainment rate of 82.6% in the Spanish Pre-U compared with 34% at A-Level, and Music 78.6% compared with 19% at A-Level.
      
In October 2017, David Lammy revealed how both Oxford and Cambridge, recipients of over £800m of taxpayers’ money each year, consistently enrol around 80% of their intake from the top two social classes, with more offers being made to pupils from Eton than to students on free school meals across the whole country. The number of ethnic minority students accepted is so low that Lammy concluded there has to be ‘systematic bias’. Meanwhile, Oxford makes more offers to applicants from five of the home counties than to the whole of the north of England.

Such figures speak for themselves, but only tell half the story, when the UK’s most prestigious schools train their students to sit exams that systematically evade the kind of standardisation and regulation that supposedly allows for the comparable evaluation of aptitude in any given subject. A Freedom of Information request recently revealed that in the academic year 2017-18, there were 125 undergraduates with three or more Pre-U qualifications but no A-Levels at Oxford and Cambridge, and 1075 students with a combination of three or more A-Level and Pre-U qualifications. As well as further squeezing the chances of pupils from underprivileged backgrounds and underfunded schools, the figures indicate a permanent minority whose route to the country’s top universities is beyond public scrutiny.

I sent a Freedom of Information request to Ofqual asking what measures were taken to ensure Pre-U exams were regulated to the same degree as other examinations. Ofqual, I was informed, does ‘set rules that apply to all awarding bodies and all regulated qualifications, including the Pre-U’, and awarding organisations have to ‘make an annual statement confirming the extent to which they have complied’ with them. There are, however, ‘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. Why, I wonder, is this not a prerequisite for the Pre-U exams?

I also asked about the number of Pre-U papers set and marked by teachers from the independent sector and was told that Ofqual ‘does not collect this information’. My last enquiry related to how Ofqual ensured Pre-U results and grading were comparable with A-Level results and grading, and whether Ofqual standardised marked papers from the different awarding bodies to guarantee consistency. The response was that Ofqual does not ‘make such comparisons’.
So Ofqual does indeed ‘regulate’ Pre-U exams, but not in the same way it regulates A-Levels; if both exams are accepted as university entrance qualifications, shouldn’t the exam ‘watchdog’ be equally stringent with both? Shouldn’t the Commons Select Committee on Education now have more questions for the chiefs of CAIE and Ofqual? And isn’t it time that the assumption that the attendees of elite public schools really are brighter than the rest of us was tested on a level playing field?

Ending corporate greed

One would have thought that any UK government, anxious to increase revenue, would refuse contracts to those companies which had their "operations based in tax havens" (Majority of firms with state contracts "not paying fair tax", 20.10.19). Sadly this is clearly not the case, and the researcher at the thinktank Demos makes a valid point when saying that  public procurement is "pretty much the best opportunity the government has to demonstrate what a good British business looks like". 
  Perhaps, however, an even better opportunity might arise if Roosevelt`s 1930s policy was adopted, and amended so that not only the government but the whole of the British public would know where to do their "shopping". FDR instigated the Blue Eagle awards, for companies which were seen to be acting in the best interest of America, not just their shareholders, and which could then be used in stores and in advertising.
  A similar scheme in this country could be devised for companies which put the following policies into practice: paying their taxes in full, adopting sensible pay ratios to end short-termism and outrageous bonus schemes, and to ensure all workers received at least the living wage, using zero-hours contracts only when advantageous to employees, introducing co-determination with workers` representatives on company boards, and having functional  apprenticeship schemes. Government could of course also include criteria relating to their green targets.
    Demos said there was "a need for new measures", including "minimum standards for public procurement", but why not apply those standards to all of our companies, and award accordingly?

Sunday 20 October 2019

UK politics and media moved to the right

Nick Cohen is right to say that "yesterday`s BNP manifesto is today`s Conservative party platform", but it is not only politics in the UK which has moved to the right (Brexiters` adoption of war language will stop Britain from finding peace, 13.10.19). Is it really only the far right`s journalists who, as Cohen states, see "sinister forces conspiring against their own country"? Was Harold Wilson, who introduced Capital Gains tax, raised income tax to 83% for top earners and added an extra 15% on unearned income, renationalised the steel industry and increased the spread of comprehensive schools, described as "hard left" and pilloried by the mainstream press in the way that Corbyn has been? Of course not. Sadly, the press appears to have moved in the same direction as the Tory party!
     Andrew Rawnsley  rightly criticised the Tories for extravagantly promising "the largest annual increase in public spending in 15 years and tax cuts on top", but he could not resist having a go at Labour as well (Labour and the Tories promise to lavish us with gifts, but who will foot the bill? 13.10.19). By all means question how both parties are going to pay for their pledges, but at least acknowledge that, unlike the Tories, Corbyn and McDonnell have already committed to increased income tax for the well off, a rise in corporation tax to a level more compatible with the rest of the world, and various increases in VAT as in private school fees. There`s also another Rawnsley omission, tax avoidance, which costs the country at least £30+bn a year, and about which next to nothing has been done by Tory governments, except cutting by thousands staff at HMRC working to prevent it! Labour at least is keen to reduce it, something that the Tories have never really believed in.
    Criticism of Labour backed by evidence is fine; criticism which ignores the evidence is biased!

Friday 18 October 2019

Labour MPs must vote against Johnson

The key point about the Brexit deal being hatched by Johnson is that it has first and foremost to meet the needs of most of the ERG (British workers will pay the price if Johnson is allowed to do this deal, 17/10/19). As your editorial pointed out, for that group of right wing Tories, the "very purpose of Brexit is liberation from a regulatory yoke", meaning labour rights, food and environmental standards and even financial regulations, feeble as they are, designed to control the worst excesses of capitalism, will all stand little chance of survival in a post-Brexit country controlled by Johnson.
     This is the task Labour faces, that regardless of what many voters think about freedom of movement and Brussels interference, leave supporters have to be persuaded that Johnson`s Brexit is nowhere near the one they voted for in 2016. It has to be opposed, as Owen Jones states, by all Labour MPs (Labour MPs who vote for a Tory deal must lose the whip, 17/10/19). Failure to do so means that they are indeed betraying "the most basic reasons their party exists". All anti-Corbyn bias, the  reason for so many of the divisions within Labour ranks, has to be forgotten, and all Labour MPs must unite against this duplicitous prime minister, or resign. Johnson`s oft-repeated claims that he leads a "one nation" Conservative party must not be allowed, as Cummings intends, to even begin to enter the social consciousness. Every Labour MP has a duty not only to denounce the notion at every opportunity, but to reject any deal supported by the majority of the ERG!

Unpublished letters on betrayal of the Kurds

One can understand why, after "Donald Trump`s decision to abandon Syria`s Kurds",  the elderly Kurdish man describes the action as a "betrayal" ("Betrayal is a bitters taste". Kurds` anger at Trump as bombs fall, 11/10/19). The truth is, however, that the US is not the only government which is guilty of betrayal. The Kurdish defeat of Isis was not done simply so that America could be safer, and its economy protected,  but that the whole world, including the UK, would no longer have to face such terrorism. All of the main powers should be doing everything in their power to get the Turks to stop their attacks. 
     We are told the British government are "calling on" Turkey to reconsider, but why isn`t it demanding the UN to take more action, threatening the ending of Turkey`s membership of NATO, stopping the supply of all military equipment and tools to the Turks until all action is called off, or even leading the EU in protesting and warning of economic sanctions? The  UK government sent warships when Iran took retaliatory action over an oil tanker, but when thousands of innocent Kurdish lives are at risk, it does next to nothing. A huge debt is owed to the Kurdish people by us all; simply blaming the idiot in the White House is not enough!

Strangely, in his otherwise excellent article on Trump`s "betrayal of the Kurds", Jonathan Freedland fails to mention one very important point (Trump`s deal with Turkey will have lethal consequences, 12/10/19). Trump is not alone!  By its failure to force Erdogan to withdraw his troops, the world, or at least its main powers, is also guilty of betrayal. Instead of the usual ineffective response, "calling on" Turkey to reconsider, the UN, Nato, the EU, and the British government should be demanding an immediate end to attacks. At the very least Turkey`s membership of NATO should be suspended, and all supplies of military equipment and tools to the Turks stopped. 
      The  UK government sent warships when Iran took retaliatory action over an oil tanker, but when thousands of innocent Kurdish lives are at risk, it does next to nothing. A huge debt is owed to the Kurdish people by us all; more than anyone, their soldiers are responsible for the reduced threat of organised terrorism in the west. Yet, when Trump effectively gives a green light for the "ethnic cleansing" of Kurds in northeastern Syria, other governments appear unwilling to do anything to stop it. Shame on them!

Tuesday 15 October 2019

Criticising Uefa to be done with caution!

The disgusting behaviour of the Bulgarian football fans showed no sign of abating after the "announcement was read out over the speaker system", and a walk-off by the players might have had more effect, particularly in the long term (England match halted twice over racist abuse, 15/10/19). No doubt Uefa`s sanctions against the Bulgarian football union will be increased, with perhaps 15,000 of the 46,340 seats "closed off as punishment" next time, but the UK`s response to racism is often equally ineffective.
     Ian Wright might well be "proud of what we are doing at the moment", but as John Barnes recently wrote, "racism cannot be eradicated from stadiums until it is eradicated from society", and the UK is a long way from achieving that ("I was seen as the voice of reason on race. I haven`t changed",14/10/19). Those responsible for Leave.EU`s deeply offensive xenophobic tweet last week were allowed to get away with their racism with a deletion and feeble apology, the propagandists` equivalent of 1000 stadium seats (Banks says sorry after Leave.EU`s xenophobic Merkel tweet, 10/10/19)! Why was no action taken against the pro-Brexit campaign group, when the guidance for Crown Prosecutors over Part 111 of the Public Order Act of 1986 when dealing with incitement to racial hatred, defines the latter as "hatred against a group of persons defined by reference to colour, race, nationality or ethnic or national origins"? For an offence to be committed, it has be be "threatening, abusive or insulting", and it has to be "likely in all the circumstances to stir up racial hatred". Just like the Bulgarian fans,  Leave.EU`s anti-German meme was inciting racist hatred. Throwing stones at Uefa from inside our British greenhouse is not necessarily the wisest action!

Sunday 13 October 2019

One Nation Toryism? When? (2)

William Keegan rightly points out "the absurdity of the so-called One Nation future Johnson promises", but after almost 10 years of unnecessary austerity aimed primarily at society`s least fortunate, is it not time to question whether such a thing as "One Nation Toryism" has ever existed (Brexit only belongs to the lawless "party of law and order", 06.10.19)? Not in this century certainly, with Cameron`s policy of "lower taxes, especially for the more prosperous", almost certainly to be copied by Johnson if given the chance, whilst massive cuts to health, caring and education budgets simply display callous indifference.
      If, as Michael Heseltine recently wrote in the Guardian, "one nation" is about "governing for the whole country", it would appear to have only ever existed as a piece of election propaganda (Boris Johnson has no right to call himself a one-nation Conservative, 12/09/19). Pouring money into the south, doing next to nothing either to ease the plight of the poor and black people, or to prevent tax avoidance and evasion, disqualifies practically all 20th century Tory governments from deserving a "One Nation" description. Even Disraeli, who was the first Tory prime minister to describe himself as such, was more concerned with his reforms being "window dressing" rather than methods of properly reducing the wealth gap, and he was deservedly rejected by the working class electorate in 1880.
    If history teaches us anything, it`s that "One Nation Toryism" exists only, in Keegan`s words, as a "monstrous lie", an oxymoron if ever there was one!

Tory propagandist Mark Wallace is probably right that the "Get Brexit done" message constitutes a "compelling message" for many voters, but the idea that "people are susceptible " to the "do it and move on" message is both questionable and patronising (This government is just doing its job, 15/10/19). Are we meant to forget all the hardships imposed, particularly on the weakest in society, in the last 9+ years by these Tories and their pro-austerity allies, the Lib Dems? Who can ever forget their ridiculous "all in it together" slogan which they spouted whilst simultaneously cutting taxes for the wealthiest, and imposing pay freezes on the majority?
     Clearly they are still at it; taking the electors for mugs is their speciality. In the post-Queens`s speech debate, Johnson and his fellow Cummings-primed cronies repeated their new mantra, that they`re all "one-nation Conservatives"! Michael Heseltine, not a renowned Tory lefty, recently described the myth that is one-nation Toryism as "governing for the whole country"! Surely that disqualifies all recent Tory governments from having a claim to the description? Even Disraeli, 19th century Tory prime minister and the first to describe himself as such, only attempted "window dressing" reforms rather than ones which improved lives, and was duly rejected by the electorate in 1880. Voters were not gullible then, and they won`t be deceived by such insulting nonsense now!

Sunday 6 October 2019

Unpublished letter on Thomas Cook Affair

Your Business leader said that the chair of the business select committee, Rachel Reeves, "should not be too obsessed with her idea that the downfall of Thomas Cook appears to be a sorry tale of corporate greed" (Thomas Cook was brought down by incompetence, not boardroom greed, 29.09.19) The only reason given is that, although figures like the £35m paid over the last 12 years to the "past three chief executives look appalling", they need to be "treated with care", because out of Frankhauser`s "notional £8.4m haul", about £4m of that was in shares which are now worthless! Of course "incompetence and hubris" played their part, but obscene levels of pay without any requirement for the company to make long-term improvement explain this, and almost all of the recent corporate collapses.  It`s all been heard before, how a company goes bust after not only ridiculously high payments to the chief executive and other directors, bonus payments based on so-called "performance", but also after the accounts have been signed off by the auditors. The Commons` business, energy and industrial strategy committee repeats its disappointment and outrage with regularity, and as the Leader says, usually provokes "grovelling apologies", but nothing changes, and workers lose their jobs and security on a monotonous basis.
  Corporate greed was at the heart of the 2008 crisis, but the bonuses, tax avoidance, short-termism and lack of proper regulation in banking, accounting and business have continued unabated. Thomas Cook issued two profits warnings last year, revealing its debts then were £1.2bn, having also to write off £1.1bn spent on  its 2007 acquisition My Travel. Allied to this was the fairly obvious threat to its future profitability provided by online bookings and more competition from companies not so reliant on 20th century practices. None of this prevented Thomas Cook from continuing to pay out millions in "performance related" bonuses, and in 2017 and 2018 resuming the payments of dividends to shareholders!
     As long as none of the directors and auditors "do a Cummings" and fail to turn up for the hearings, the committee`s inquiry should be reasonably enlightening, but little else. Some of the protagonists might appear in the headlines for a few days, but as already has been proved, "naming and shaming" doesn`t work. Former employees might well "deserve to hear" explanations, but guarantees against future companies being mismanaged by greedy executives would be more welcome. Only legislation can create the transformation in the UK`s business practices which is so obviously needed! 

Saturday 5 October 2019

Guardian letter on Coe

How can Sebastian Coe`s remarks be taken seriously (Coe launches remarkable attack on BBC and Logan, 03/10/19)? Not only does he defend the indefensible and attack BBC presenters of the World Athletics Championships in Doha for rightly commenting on the practically empty stadium, he criticises the lack of "the more insightful stuff around the events". He clearly has never watched the presentation, where the insightful remarks on running, throwing and jumping make the so-called "punditry" on football programmes laughable.
As president of the IAAF, he must take much of the responsibility for the games taking place in such an unsuitable country. Surely a better policy would be to deny countries with limited human rights and gender equality the right to hold major sporting events until they reform? By all means question why Logan`s earnings from the BBC are way lower than Lineker`s, but by making such ill-informed remarks, Coe simply makes us question his judgement even more!