Examination boards in the United Kingdom

Examination boards in the United Kingdom (sometimes called awarding bodies or examining groups) are the examination boards responsible for setting and awarding secondary education level qualifications, such as GCSEs, Standard Grades, A Levels, Highers and vocational qualifications, to students in the United Kingdom.

Broadly speaking, the UK has (and has always had) two separate school systems: one for England, Wales and Northern Ireland and one for Scotland. As a result, two separate sets of exam boards have developed.

England, Wales and Northern Ireland

Unusually, England, Wales and Northern Ireland have several exam boards, with schools and colleges able to freely choose between them on a subject-by-subject basis. Currently, there are five exam boards, all of which offer a broad range of qualifications:

* AQA (Assessment and Qualifications Alliance)
* CCEA (Council for the Curriculum, Examinations & Assessment)
* Edexcel
* OCR (Oxford, Cambridge and RSA Examinations)
* WJEC (Welsh Joint Education Committee)

Though the exam boards have regional roots (see below), they are all nationwide, though the CCEA is not very active outside of its native Northern Ireland. All offer a range of qualifications, though not all boards offer every qualification in every area (Edexcel, for example, offers a great deal of vocational qualifications, while the WJEC is the only board to offer A Level Film Studies). Schools and colleges have a completely free choice between the boards, depending on the qualification offered. Most schools use a mixture of boards for their GCSE qualifications, with a similar situation existing at A Level. (It is worth noting that a school using, say, OCR for GCSE History is perfectly free to pick a different board for A Level History.)

History

Early beginnings

Exam boards have been around as long as there have been qualifications offered by schools. As universities had experience of offering qualifications, such as degrees, it was natural that they created the first exam boards. Indeed, the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge each had their own exam board and a joint board they ran together. The qualifications offered were generally of the boards' own creation. Schools and colleges (with some exceptions, detailed below) were free to pick which board they wanted to use, though most went for a local board.

The early boards established included:

* 1857: University of Oxford Delegacy of Local Examinations (founded by the University of Oxford)http://www.oua.ox.ac.uk/holdings/Local%20Examinations%20Delegacy%20LE.pdf]
* 1858: University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate (UCLES, founded by the University of Cambridge) [http://web.archive.org/web/19980524070609/www.ucles.org.uk/corp/index.htm]
* 1873: Oxford and Cambridge Schools Examination Board (founded by the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge) [http://www.oua.ox.ac.uk/holdings/Oxford%20&%20Cambridge%20OC.pdf]
* 1896: Central Welsh Board (founded by the Welsh local authorities)http://www.kbr30.dial.pipex.com/documents/docs2/norwood23.shtml]
* 1903: Northern Universities Joint Matriculation Board (NUJMB, founded by the Victoria University, the University of Sheffield and the University of Birmingham) [http://www.oldmancunians.org/html/news/current/TOM%20Edition%2023.pdf]

The Central Welsh Board differed from most exam boards, as it was not controlled by a university and only offered examinations to schools and colleges in Wales. Intermediate schools in Wales had to use the Board, though other schools and colleges were free to choose.

The Northern Universities Joint Matriculation Board later changed its name to the Joint Matriculation Board of the Universities of Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield and Birmingham, though has always been known as simply the Joint Matriculation Board or JMB in everyday usage.

chool Certificate and Higher School Certificate

In 1918, the first national qualifications for England, Wales and Northern Ireland were introduced: the School Certificate, taken at 16, and the Higher School Certificate, taken at 18 [http://www.cambridgeassessment.org.uk/ca/digitalAssets/114603_Complete_150th_Anniversary_Exhibition.pdf] . The existing exam boards started offering the new qualifications, normally in place of their own qualifications.

The Welsh Joint Education Committee (WJEC) was founded by the Welsh local authorities in 1948. It took over many of the Central Welsh Board's responsibilities, including running Wales's exam system [http://www.wjec.co.uk/uploads/publications/4859.pdf] .

GCE (O Level and A Level)

In 1951, the General Certificate of Education (GCE) was introduced. It was split into two stages: Ordinary Level (O Level, taken at 16) and Advanced Level (A Level, taken at 18). These qualifications replaced the School Certificate and the Higher School Certificate respectively.

The existing exam boards offered the GCE. The GCE boards were [http://www.hollings.mmu.ac.uk/research/applicat.pdf] :

* University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate (UCLES)
* Joint Matriculation Board (JMB)
* University of London School Examinations Board
* Northern Ireland Schools Examination Council
* University of Oxford Delegacy of Local Examinations
* Oxford and Cambridge Schools Examination Board
* Southern Universities’ Joint Board for School Examinations
* Welsh Joint Education Committee (WJEC)

These boards were soon joined by the Associated Examining Board (AEB), which was founded by City & Guilds in 1953 [http://www.edexcel.org.uk/VirtualContent/1245.pdf] .

CSE

In 1965, the Certificate of Secondary Education (CSE) was introduced. It was aimed at the 80% 16-year-old students who did not take O Levels and, until that point, had left school with no qualifications [http://www.qca.org.uk/qca_6210.aspx] . CSEs were administered on a local basis with local boards offering the qualifications. The local boards in England were new organisations, while in Wales and Northern Ireland (where universities did not control the existing boards), the existing boards were used. The CSE boards werehttp://www.aqa.org.uk/admin/library/CSE-EXAMRECORDS.PDF] [http://www.qca.org.uk/qca_4521.aspx] :

* Associated Lancashire Schools Board
* East Anglian Examinations Board
* East Midlands Regional Examination Board
* Metropolitan Regional Examination Board
* Middlesex Regional Examination Board
* Northern Ireland Schools Examination Council
* Northern Regional Examinations Board
* North West Regional Examinations Board
* South East Regional Examinations Board
* South West (Regional) Examinations Board
* Southern Regional Exams Board
* Welsh Joint Education Committee (WJEC)
* West Midlands Regional Examination Board
* The West Yorkshire and Lindsey Regional Examinations Board
* Yorkshire and Humberside Regional Examinations Board

In 1979, the neighbouring Metropolitan and Middlesex boards merged to form the London Regional Examinations Board. The West Yorkshire and Lindsey and Yorkshire and Humberside Boards also merged to form the Yorkshire Regional Examinations Board.

GCSE

To create a more egalitarian system, the O Levels and CSE (but not the A Level) were replaced by the General Certificate of Education (GCSE) in 1986 [http://www.qca.org.uk/qca_6210.aspx] . As O Levels and CSEs had used different exam boards (except in Wales and Northern Ireland), new 'examining groups' were created. In England, the four examining groups were consortia of regional GCE and CSE exam boards, while in Wales and Northern Ireland they were the existing boards, making six boards in total [http://www.hollings.mmu.ac.uk/research/applicat.pdf] :

* London and East Anglian Examining Group (formed by the University of London School Examinations Board, the London Regional Examination Board and the East Anglian Examinations Board)
* Midland Examining Group (MEG, formed by the Southern Universities' Joint Board, the Oxford and Cambridge Schools Examination Board, East Midlands Regional Examinations Board and the West Midlands Examinations Board)
* Northern Examining Association (NEA, formed by the Associated Lancashire Schools Examining Board, the Northern Regional Examinations Board, the North West Regional Examinations Board and the Yorkshire Regional Examinations Board)
* Northern Ireland Schools Examination Council
* Southern Examining Group (SEG, formed by the Associated Examining Board, the University of Oxford Delegacy of Local Examinations, the South East Regional Examinations Board, South West (Regional) Examinations Board and Southern Regional Exams Board)
* Welsh Joint Education Committee (WJEC)

As CSEs were no longer offered, the CSE boards effectively ceased to operate as independent boards and instead became part of their larger examining groups (some were even taken over by larger members of their groups, such as the South East Regional Examinations Board, which was acquired by the Oxford Delegacy of Local Examinations in 1985). The GCE boards, however, retained a degree of autonomy, as they still offered A Levels independently.

Though the boards were regional, schools were entirely free to pick which board they did their GCSE qualifications with and could mix and match between subjects [http://www.hants.gov.uk/scrmxn/m01000.html] .

When the Certificate of Achievement (now the Entry Level Certificate, a qualification below GCSE level) was introduced, the GCSE examining groups were responsible for administrating the qualification.

Mergers

It was not long before the GCE (A Level) boards and GCSE examining groups began to formally merge or enter into even closer working relationships. This made sense, as the it allowed merged boards to offer both GCSE and A Level qualifications and the boards were working together to offer the GCSE qualifications anyway. Many boards also took the opportunity to merge with vocational exam boards, as vocational qualifications became more common in schools. The government encouraged this, as they wanted to simplify the system by having fewer exam boards [http://www.tes.co.uk/search/story/?story_id=73665] .

Therefore, the Associated Examining Board (who offered only A Levels) entered an alliance with the Southern Examining Group (who offered only GCSEs and Entry Level Certificates) to form AEB/SEG, though both kept their respective identities. Meanwhile, the Joint Matriculation Board merged with the Northern Examining Association in 1992 to form the Northern Examinations and Assessment Board (NEAB). In 1995, the the University of Oxford Delegacy of Local Examinations (UODLE) was abolished, with its GCSE functions being transferred to AEB/SEG (its A Level functions went to UCLES). NEAB, AEB/SEG and the vocational City & Guilds formed the Assessment and Qualifications Alliance (AQA) in 1997 [http://www.tes.co.uk/search/story/?story_id=46009] , with the boards formally merging in 2000. AQA is now run as an educational charity [http://www.aqa.org.uk/over/staff.php] .

The University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate (UCLES) took over the Southern Universities' Joint Board in 1990 [http://www.cambridgeassessment.org.uk/ca/About_Us/Our_Heritage] [http://www.teachernet.gov.uk/_doc/947/exboards.xls] and the Midland Examining Group (MEG) in 1993 [http://web.archive.org/web/19980626221116/www.meg.org.uk/index.html] . When the University of Oxford Delegacy of Local Examinations (UODLE) was abolished in 1995, its A Level functions were transferred to UCLES (its GCSE functions went to AEB/SEG). In the same year, UCLES also took over the Oxford and Cambridge Schools Examination Board (OCSEB). UCLES then merged all its A Level boards together together to form the Oxford and Cambridge Examinations and Assessment Council (OCEAC) [http://web.archive.org/web/19980524070609/www.ucles.org.uk/corp/index.htm] . However, UCLES retained the separate names, meaning that it offered A Levels under the UCLES (Cambridge), UODLE (Oxford) and OCSEB (Oxford & Cambridge) names and GCSEs under the MEG name [http://web.archive.org/web/19980524070703/www.ucles.org.uk/index/index.htm] . This situation continued until 1998, when UCLES took over the vocational Royal Society of Arts Examinations Board. Following the merger, it chose to use the name Oxford, Cambridge and RSA Examinations (OCR) for all its UK qualifications [http://www.tes.co.uk/search/story/?story_id=73665] . OCR now the only exam board owned by a university and is still run by the University of Cambridge, through its Cambridge Assessment division.

The University of London School Examinations Board, who by now were calling themselves London Examinations, merged with the vocational BTEC in 1996 to form Edexcel. Though it originally ran as a educational charity, like AQA, Edexcel was taken over by Pearson in 2003, making it the only British exam board to be run by a profit-making company [http://www.edexcel.org.uk/about/whatwedo/history/] .

The Northern Ireland Schools Examination Council became the Northern Ireland School Examinations and Assessment Council before being replaced by the Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment (CCEA) in 1994. It is a non-departmental public body.

Unlike the other boards, the WJEC did not experience any major organisational changes and is still owned by the Welsh local authorities, though it operates independently.

cotland

There is just one exam board in Scotland, the SQA (Scottish Qualifications Authority), which offers all Scotland's qualifications.

History

Previously, academic qualifications were awarded by the Scottish Examination Board, while vocational qualifications were awarded by the Scottish Vocational Education Council. The two merged in 1994 to form the SQA.

References