English pass marks 'lowered'

The QCA says pass marks vary year by year

Pass marks for reading and writing tests for 11-year-olds have been lowered, it is being reported.

Students will only have to score 44% in this year's National Curriculum English test compared to 49% for last year, according to the Sunday Telegraph.

It claims this has prompted accusations that results are being manipulated so the government can meet its national literacy targets.

But the exam body the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority has categorically denied this, saying it often varies the pass mark in line with the toughness of the tests.

The paper said ministers were being accused of seeking to meet the government's self-imposed target of getting 80% of children to a certain level - Level 4 - in reading and writing.

'Care taken'

Education Secretary Charles Clarke dismissed allegations that ministers had interfered.

He said: "It would be completely wrong for me or any of my ministers to behave in that way and we wouldn't do it.

"They (the authority) are an independent body who set their tests and set their pass marks and all the rest of it entirely independently," he told ITV1's Jonathan Dimbleby programme.

If the test is harder one year then fewer marks will be needed to reach Level 4 Qualifications and Curriculum Authority

A QCA spokeswoman told BBC News Online: "Great care is taken by the QCA to set mark thresholds at the point where the standard of work needed to achieve a level is the same as in previous years."

The questions and structure of the tests changed every year "otherwise pupils would know what was in the tests", she added.

"To make sure a Level 4 is the same standard every year the number of marks needed to achieve it will vary.

"If the test is harder one year then fewer marks will be needed to reach Level 4."

But shadow education secretary Damian Green told the paper: "This sounds like a straightforward and outrageous dumbing-down."

"It is contemptible to fiddle the test marks. It is bad for the children's education but good for ministers' reputations."