The notion that exams are fair is inherently wrong - and a tailored approach to assessment needs to be seriously considered, the chief executive of a major awarding organisation has said.

In an exclusive interview with Tes, NCFE’s David Gallagher welcomed the focus on alternative assessment brought about by the pandemic and said exams should be used to inform best teaching and learning practice, as well as improve the learner journey. 

He said: “When you look at it from a fairness, inclusivity and diversity perspective, the notion that exams are fair is inherently wrong. Exams are there to discriminate, and two-thirds succeed because one third fails. 

“When you step away from it, and think about it like that, why in life, and in education, specifically, should one third have to fail for two-thirds to succeed? I just don’t get that way of doing things and it’s just how we’ve always done it.” 

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GCSEs: A ‘lie’ to say exams are best and fairest

Long read: Meet David Gallagher, NCFE’s chief executive 

Throughout the past year, education secretary Gavin Williamson has maintained that he believes exams are the fairest way of judging performance. 

However, when speaking at the NEU conference a few weeks ago, Robin Bevan, the teaching union’s president, said it was a “lie” to say that exams are the “best and fairest” way to judge students’ abilities.

Exams ‘discriminate’

Speaking to Tes, Mr Gallagher said exams were “very transactional”, and that students didn’t learn anything in the process, other than the outcome. He proposed a different method of assessment tailored to individual students, with the insight and intelligence gathered to measure what works both at teaching and learning levels. 

He said: “If you look at end-point assessment (EPA) in apprenticeships at the moment, we can tell you with a fair degree of accuracy which providers are really strong in certain areas of teaching, and which providers are weak. We can even pinpoint it to certain educators. But that information is not used within the system to understand what’s working and what’s not. We should be using that to continuously improve. 

“Imagine if you sat a functional skills exam, for example, and at the end, you didn’t just get your pass or fail, but a really rich report that says, ‘This is where you are strong, this is good, and here are areas you need to develop,’ alongside some content, support and advice. And we could do it. We’ve got the technology, resources and insight, but we just don’t put it to best use.

“Imagine if we had a culture within education where the vast majority of learners got excited about an assessment, because they will be thinking, ‘Right, what am I going to learn in the process?’” 

Ofqual: ‘Exams are the fairest way of assessing what a student knows’

An Ofqual spokesperson said: “Exams and formal assessments remain the fairest way of assessing what a student knows, understands and can do. Every student sitting an exam or completing an assessment has the chance to show what they know. They are asked the same questions. They are marked in the same way and against the same criteria.   

“It is not the case that a third of students have to fail an exam. Pass marks and grade boundary marks reflect an agreed standard of performance, and the proportion of students reaching that standard will be different in different subjects, and in different years.  

“There is clearly going to be scope to reflect on what has been learned during the Covid pandemic, and what implications it might have for the future of assessment. We will consider how we bring together the experience of the pandemic and the wider fast-developing evidence we now have in areas such as curriculum design, the requirements of employers, evidence-based pedagogy and assessment, in the context of the capabilities of technology. Working with awarding organisations, EPAOs and partners across the system, we’ll consider how these factors can help us provide the best possible exam and assessment arrangements in the future.”

Eddie Playfair, senior policy manager at the Association of Colleges, said: “Assessment can be motivating and we are in favour of an assessment system which values what students can do and supports their learning and progression. Summative grades have their uses but there’s a lot of value in providing students with good formative feedback which celebrates their achievement and can help with their further learning.”