GCSE Grades, August 2012, and The Rule of Law

The controversy over the GCSE English grades rolls on and with time and probing there are more layers and dimensions to the issue. There has been a statement in the House of Commons, the Commons Education Committee has started an inquiry and many have spoken out, such as Dr Christopher Ray, chairman of the Head Masters' and Headmistresses' Conference (HMC) and Russell Hobby, general secretary of the NAHT. There are calls for Ofqual's Chief Executive Glenys Stacey, to resign. The figures make clear that a fair number of English candidates who, by criteria and statistics, expected to gain a Grade C failed to do so as the per cent of candidates with A-C grades fell from 65.4 per cent in 2011 to 63.9 per cent in 2012. As English is a central GCSE, the educational journey for those who failed to gain a Grade C was changed. Without being too stuffy and I am capable of that, this can be seen as a constitutional issue, a matter of ‘the rule of law’. In a Sempringham [new perspective, March 2005] concepts series’ article on the rule of law, Gilbert Pleuger stated the rule of law gave emphasis to ‘citizens’ equality before the law and the predictability of actions: in short, enforcement of law is fair and not arbitrary and thereby citizens have security’. While I agree that the GCSE English grades are an administrative question and not a major ‘political liberty question’, I suggest that there is a ‘rule of law’ aspect that impinges strongly on a small swathe of teenagers and their families.

Contributor: Geoff Williams. Sempringham [ehistory.org.uk] eLearning Office.