A-Level Results

The envelopes were in the post, the clock was ticking and the heart stopping moment of truth for more than 300,000 A Level students in England, Wales and Northern Ireland was coming.

This year's overall pass rate is 94.3%. That's up more than four percent on last year.

The number of A grade passes is also up with one in five students now gaining the top mark.

Incredibly, those figures mark two decades of year on year improvement. But is that statistic believable?

Allan Little discussed if the annual exam results have become nothing more than an exercise in propaganda with the Education Minister and the Former Chief Inspector of Schools.

ALLAN LITTLE:
I am joined here by the Education Minister Stephen Twigg and on the line from Edinburgh by former schools inspector Chris Woodhead. Stephen Twigg, when you took your A-levels in the mid eighties, up to a third of your classmates would have failed, were they more stupid than this generation?

STEPHEN TWIGG:
(Education Minister)
First of all these are very good results and congratulations to the students, their teachers and their parents for the support and encouragement. What we have seen is a massive change since I did A levels in 1985. The numbers going on to university are about treble what they were in those days. We have seen real improvements in the standards of teaching and learning and I think that is something we can celebrate. It is not all perfect, there is room for improvement but these results truly reflect an improvement in standards in our schools.

ALLAN LITTLE:
For an improvement over 20 years from 65% to 94%, that can't be wholly attributed to rising standards. If it goes on like this, in two years time there is going to be 100% pass rate?

STEPHEN TWIGG:
One of the reasons for that change is that in the late 80s the system was changed. It used to be the top X% would all get an A grade regardless of what the percentage was that they got in the exam. That was changed rightly. 94% is the overall pass rate. It is still the case that only one in five are getting A grades. It is still a very vigorous exam. We heard at the beginning of that report, the young people talking about how hard they have worked to get these results. I think the critics need to remember that, these are young people who have worked very hard.

ALLAN LITTLE:
Some of the critics are the parents themselves, who remember that in the 60s and 70s you took three A levels, one brilliant student in the class would stand a chance of getting three As and nobody dreamt of doing four, now three As is common place?

STEPHEN TWIGG:
Three As is not common place. The vast majority of students do not get 3As and it still has real value to get 3As or 3As and a B. Parents are more likely to talk to me about the amount of work their young people are having to do. This is the first time we have had the results after the two years of AS-levels and A-levels. We have seen an increase in the numbers of young people studying more subjects after the age of 16. That was one of the purposes of this reform and it is working.

ALLAN LITTLE:
Chris Woodhead in Edinburgh, do you accept that, in a sense critics are flying in the face of the real achievements so of many A-level students.

CHRIS WOODHEAD:
(Former Chief Inspector of Schools)
I'm afraid I don't, I find the minister's complacency breathtaking. There are only four possible explanations for this rise. The first is that each cohort of students is more intelligent than the last, the second is they are working harder, the third is their teachers are more effective and the fourth is that the exams got easier. The first two explanations are fanciful, there is some truth in the third but I am afraid the fourth is the one that I find most convincing. The terrifying prospect is we are living in educational cloud cuckoo land.

ALLAN LITTLE:
Isn't it significant that 50,000 fewer A-levels were taken this year because students are targeting their efforts at the subjects they are more likely to pass and have a better guide as to what they might be from the AS levels that they sat the year before?

CHRIS WOODHEAD:
What is the point of an examination? It is to discriminate amongst the candidates. You have 20% of candidates now getting an A grade. You've got a pass rate of 94%. The exam isn't fulfilling the function it should fulfil.

ALLAN LITTLE:
Stephen Twigg, why do so many Maths departments, half the universities in the country, now have to run remedial classes because when the first years arrive, they are not up to scratch?

STEPHEN TWIGG:
Chris Woodhead accused me of complacency and I am certainly not complacent, particularly on Maths. We have recognised there is a large decline in the number of students taking A-level Maths and we have seen the issues that you have raised. As a government, we have set up an inquiry to look at Maths. Not just at A-level but earlier because some of these issues arise at an earlier age. There is a particular issue about Maths. You quoted the figure for the 6% decline in the number of A-level entries. Most of that decline is fewer students doing General Studies but Maths has declined. We recognise that.

ALLAN LITTLE:
You say it only applies to Maths. The truth is kids are arriving at university with As and Bs and finding the first couple of weeks of the university course is way beyond them?

STEPHEN TWIGG:
The reason I applied it to Maths is that I am looking at the numbers of the A level results that have come out tonight. Ten or twenty years ago ghe proportion of young people that got the opportunity to go to university was lower. The previous Government and this one have expanded higher-education. I think that is right thing for us to do. There is strong expert evidence that standards, particularly in literacy, are improving and can I just say, Chris Woodhead when he was Chief Inspector appeared before the select committee on education less than two years ago and said he didn't see any evidence that A-level standards were declining. Students are working harder and teachers are teaching more effectively. I am not saying it is all perfect, we have to get improvement, particularly in maths.

ALLAN LITTLE:
I want to come back to that relationship between expansion and standards in a second but Chris Woodhead, what about that point?

CHRIS WOODHEAD:
I appeared before the select committee two years ago and said A-levels needed be made harder because they were failing in their basic function. Just take Mathematics. The minister says there is a problem before A-level. There certainly is a problem, the ex-chief examiner in Mathematics for one of the boards said last year that when he started 16 years ago the pass rate for higher level Maths was 48%. Last year it was 18%. Politicians can sit there tonight and they can say with brazen cheek that there isn't a problem. Of course there is a problem. The marks that are needed to acquire different grades have been lowered year after year. It is easier to get the grades now than it was in the past.

ALLAN LITTLE:
Stephen Twigg, we heard John Clare in that report saying he believed standards were lower but that that was a good thing. He called on the Government to say we need an A-level of a lower standard to facilitate more people getting in to university. This is driven by the need of the Government to get 50% of school leavers into higher education by the year 2010.

STEPHEN TWIGG:
No, we have looked at the evidence because we take the allegations being made by Chris Woodhead and others very seriously. The evidence we have is that is not the case. There is a particular issue with Maths which we are addressing. But the evidence that we have drawn together does not support the view that standards generally are declining.

This transcript was produced from the teletext subtitles that are generated live for Newsnight. It has been checked against the programme as broadcast, however Newsnight can accept no responsibility for any factual inaccuracies. We will be happy to correct serious errors.