In an attempt to deflect criticism of "dumbing down" of standards, the Government's curriculum advisers spent more than £50,000 on newspaper advertisements urging the public to congratulate pupils on their achievement.
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Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary, has acknowledged that the high proportion of candidates gaining three or more A-grades makes it difficult for universities to choose the best candidates and is considering introducing an A* grade.
Shoddy standards don't make students better. I doubt that students in the UK have been steadily improving for 24 years consecutively. I get the feeling that a mixture of teaching to the test, lowering standards and the proliferation of study aids readily available to anyone with an internet connection has lead to this run of 'success' and 'improvement'.
Even if kids are smarter, if an "A" level is to remain a meaningful mark of excellence and a tool for evaluating the difference between students of the same age, then constantly increasing the number of students awarded that grade makes the grade more and more useless as a measurement of excellence.
But I love the idea of a government spending money on an ad campaign to convince folks to "congratulate pupils on their achievement."
It's a small sum mentioned, relatively speaking, but it represents a particularly silly urge found in most beauracracies.
The beaucrats mindset, 'can't be that we are doing things poorly, we just suffer from poor publicity'.
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My new unified theory that explains life, the universe, and everything:
The inmates are running the asylum.
Or, in this case, Stuart Smiley is running the education department.
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