WEBVTT 00:00:00.500 --> 00:00:13.820 Thank you very much. I was actually quite grateful to Cambridge Assessment, to Simon and Tim, when they asked me to give this keynote, because it's this usual principle, you know, if you want to learn about something, commit yourself to teaching it. 00:00:14.160 --> 00:00:18.300 If you want to sort out your thoughts on it, agree to do a lecture on it. 00:00:18.300 --> 00:00:36.020 And what I'm going to do this afternoon is actually start at quite a theoretical level and sort of in that sense stay in my comfort zone since I teach public sector management and therefore several times a year and particularly in the last couple of weeks with new students I get up and justify the role of the state. 00:00:36.020 --> 00:01:03.420 But I'm then going to move much more to where we are today in this country and to the extreme peculiarity of our arrangements, the continuing extreme peculiarity, and I would have to say, in my view, unfitness for purpose, unfitness for purpose of the way that we currently intervene at state level in educational assessment. 00:01:03.420 --> 00:01:12.040 and I am in fact going to suggest that at the moment, although there is a certain tendency 00:01:12.040 --> 00:01:17.900 tendency, perhaps a tendency born of desperation, to feel that the advent of Ofqual is a new 00:01:17.900 --> 00:01:22.400 dawn, that we are finally going to get to light touch regulation. Unfortunately, and 00:01:22.400 --> 00:01:26.520 this is, I have to say at the very beginning, nothing to do with the people who currently 00:01:26.520 --> 00:01:31.460 run Ofqual, for whom I have the most enormous admiration. But I think that at the moment 00:01:31.460 --> 00:01:36.220 we are deluding ourselves if we think that things are going to get, from my perspective, 00:01:36.220 --> 00:01:38.760 and I think from many people's perspective better, 00:01:39.160 --> 00:01:41.800 we are in fact continuing to compound 00:01:41.800 --> 00:01:43.880 the extreme peculiarity of our system 00:01:43.880 --> 00:01:46.400 and to move further and further away 00:01:46.400 --> 00:01:48.060 from what is the standard 00:01:48.060 --> 00:01:53.880 standard interpretation of the state's role in intervening in activities which could be 00:01:53.880 --> 00:02:02.820 perfectly well carried out by civil society. So what justifies government activity? Well basically 00:02:02.820 --> 00:02:07.080 government is there to do things that wouldn't happen at all if government wasn't there and to 00:02:07.080 --> 00:02:12.460 do things that would not happen adequately in government's absence. This of course if you are 00:02:12.460 --> 00:02:17.480 an ambitious government leaves you a large large large amount of wriggle room but there has been 00:02:17.480 --> 00:02:20.280 a great deal of thought devoted to this over the years 00:02:20.280 --> 00:02:24.080 and to what sorts of things might most... 00:02:24.080 --> 00:02:29.080 necessarily be carried out by governmental agencies. 00:02:29.080 --> 00:02:31.760 And there are three things in particular 00:02:31.760 --> 00:02:34.020 which have been around for a long time. 00:02:34.020 --> 00:02:36.720 One is the idea of protecting common goods, 00:02:36.720 --> 00:02:39.800 common land, fisheries, the air, atmosphere. 00:02:39.800 --> 00:02:41.300 It's hard to imagine. 00:02:41.300 --> 00:02:42.560 It's hard to imagine we're going to do 00:02:42.560 --> 00:02:44.940 very much about climate change with government. 00:02:44.940 --> 00:02:46.560 It's very clear that we're not going to do anything 00:02:46.560 --> 00:02:49.000 very much about climate change without government. 00:02:49.000 --> 00:02:51.840 And equally in terms of air pollution, 00:02:51.840 --> 00:02:53.500 where actually cleaner air has certainly 00:02:53.500 --> 00:02:57.900 made us all live longer, that's a classic governmental activity. 00:02:57.900 --> 00:03:00.100 And then there's also the idea of providing public 00:03:00.099 --> 00:03:05.379 goods, goods that no market can provide effectively because they can't be charged for effectively. 00:03:05.719 --> 00:03:10.059 So, you know, it's very hard to have an army that only protects you if you've actually paid your army tax. 00:03:11.339 --> 00:03:17.519 You know, you can try, but, and equally, you know, if you're in, if the fire engine comes, 00:03:17.599 --> 00:03:24.039 you don't really want them to be sort of trying to log onto the database to find out how many of your children you paid to have rescued. 00:03:24.859 --> 00:03:29.759 So, there are public goods that basically all governments provide because nobody else can. 00:03:29.759 --> 00:03:32.319 and because, in effect, you can't charge. 00:03:33.119 --> 00:03:36.119 And there's another fundamental thing 00:03:36.119 --> 00:03:38.819 which we now feel government should do, 00:03:38.899 --> 00:03:41.359 which is actually very modern and which I will come back to later, 00:03:41.779 --> 00:03:44.219 which is that they should prevent and regulate monopolies. 00:03:44.659 --> 00:03:46.859 That actually one of the things that governments are there for 00:03:46.859 --> 00:03:50.139 is to ensure that there is, for example, a market. 00:03:50.999 --> 00:03:52.079 And this is actually rather new. 00:03:52.159 --> 00:03:54.259 In the past, the state thought that monopolies were a great thing 00:03:54.259 --> 00:03:57.979 and you sold them off and that was what monopolies were for. 00:03:58.079 --> 00:03:59.259 They were revenue raisers. 00:03:59.319 --> 00:04:01.179 Now we tend to think they are bad things 00:04:01.179 --> 00:04:04.039 and the government should regulate and control them. 00:04:04.039 --> 00:04:12.139 But going back to public goods, the traditional list includes one in the middle, which I have called weights and measures. 00:04:12.139 --> 00:04:17.139 And that is a very, very, very traditional role. 00:04:17.139 --> 00:04:25.139 And Cambridge, like pretty much any town in the world actually, of any size, has a marketplace. 00:04:25.139 --> 00:04:32.139 And many people, myself included, think that civilization came out of trading 00:04:32.139 --> 00:04:38.139 and that's how we got towns and cities and towns and cities are the fount of pretty much all that's interesting in life. 00:04:38.779 --> 00:04:43.359 But they are certainly an activity, 00:04:44.299 --> 00:04:47.159 the activity of trading, the running of markets, 00:04:47.259 --> 00:04:48.159 the having of markets, 00:04:48.159 --> 00:04:52.619 is something which has been around for all of, 00:04:53.819 --> 00:04:57.319 certainly not merely all of agricultural humanities history, 00:04:57.559 --> 00:05:00.839 but even before that, when there were hunting bands, they traded, 00:05:01.359 --> 00:05:04.839 and with the settled agricultural settlements, there came settled markets, 00:05:04.839 --> 00:05:09.899 and these were and are regulated by any government. 00:05:11.179 --> 00:05:13.979 Now, I'm going to come back to this in a minute, 00:05:13.979 --> 00:05:16.859 because what I'm going to argue today 00:05:16.859 --> 00:05:21.419 is that qualifications need to be thought of 00:05:21.419 --> 00:05:24.179 and assessment, formal assessment needs to be thought of 00:05:24.179 --> 00:05:26.779 in terms of that weights and measures function of government, 00:05:27.319 --> 00:05:30.919 of regulating markets in such a way that people are not cheated, 00:05:31.579 --> 00:05:33.819 that things are not sold at short weight, 00:05:34.299 --> 00:05:37.219 but that it's that very, very traditional role 00:05:37.219 --> 00:05:39.799 which is at the heart of the state's role in assessment 00:05:39.799 --> 00:05:44.399 and which we have moved away from 00:05:44.399 --> 00:05:47.459 and no longer focus on in the way that we should. 00:05:50.479 --> 00:05:52.219 A little bit of history to this. 00:05:52.219 --> 00:05:57.559 Education and training are not traditionally public goods. 00:05:57.559 --> 00:06:00.199 If you look at most of history, 00:06:00.199 --> 00:06:07.119 The role of the state in education, in mind, educational assessment, was very, very small to non-existent. 00:06:07.619 --> 00:06:09.259 Most education took place in the home. 00:06:09.559 --> 00:06:14.759 Apprenticeships took place as private contracts between individuals and their apprenticeship masters. 00:06:15.459 --> 00:06:22.119 And the universities which first developed in Europe developed very much under the umbrella of and to serve the church, 00:06:22.119 --> 00:06:27.099 which itself was an institution as often opposed to as in collaboration with the state. 00:06:27.979 --> 00:06:33.739 So education training were not, until very recently, state functions. 00:06:33.739 --> 00:06:36.219 They were not traditional state functions, they were not until very 00:06:36.219 --> 00:06:37.919 very recently state functions at all. 00:06:38.539 --> 00:06:40.439 The state provided the underpinning of the system, 00:06:40.519 --> 00:06:41.799 just as it does for anything, 00:06:42.379 --> 00:06:44.959 pretty much in the same way as it provides weights and measures, 00:06:45.239 --> 00:06:46.579 functions in marketplaces. 00:06:47.139 --> 00:06:51.259 Any economy needs the state to hold the ring, 00:06:51.359 --> 00:06:52.659 to provide a law of contract, 00:06:52.779 --> 00:06:54.119 so that if people don't hold their word, 00:06:54.199 --> 00:06:55.239 you can go to the courts, 00:06:55.579 --> 00:06:56.939 which were one of my public goods. 00:06:57.579 --> 00:07:00.179 And that was something which certainly underpinned 00:07:00.179 --> 00:07:01.539 the development of education. 00:07:01.979 --> 00:07:04.819 And in addition, through history, 00:07:04.819 --> 00:07:11.259 quite often the state did decide to give monopolies, to license. 00:07:11.259 --> 00:07:12.239 And it did that on... 00:07:12.239 --> 00:07:17.379 two grounds. The overt ground was usually an extension, if you like, of the weights and 00:07:17.379 --> 00:07:22.259 measures function that you couldn't trust people to operate unless they had been licensed, 00:07:22.379 --> 00:07:26.839 unless the state did something to make sure that only the competent practiced that people 00:07:26.839 --> 00:07:32.079 might be cheated. And so there would be a monopolist, a licensing monopolist, so you could 00:07:32.079 --> 00:07:39.119 only be a hatter if you'd served a hatter's apprenticeship. And they were also, of course, 00:07:39.119 --> 00:07:39.899 a source of income. 00:07:40.399 --> 00:07:40.759 Always. 00:07:41.179 --> 00:07:42.739 Always a source of income for the state. 00:07:43.539 --> 00:07:48.259 And anybody who has read their Adam Smith will know that he railed against the 00:07:48.258 --> 00:07:55.518 monopolies introduced by and underwritten by the state and particularly railed against old-style 00:07:55.518 --> 00:08:03.198 apprenticeships which he thought were an obstacle to progress and a way of basically extracting 00:08:03.198 --> 00:08:12.898 monopoly profits from the population. So if you then start looking at the last 200 years leading 00:08:12.898 --> 00:08:20.438 up to today, you get two things happening which are to some degree very different. 00:08:20.438 --> 00:08:24.278 The first was the trend to economic liberalism. 00:08:24.278 --> 00:08:29.518 liberalization, an assault on monopolies, an assault on licenses, an assault on barriers to 00:08:29.518 --> 00:08:36.438 trade and protection. That then had a reaction in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and we got 00:08:36.438 --> 00:08:42.378 central planning, manpower planning, big documents saying exactly how many engineers 00:08:42.378 --> 00:08:50.618 Sudan would need in 30 years' time, even larger documents predicting exactly how many technicians 00:08:50.618 --> 00:09:00.298 of various sorts, either the USSR or India would need in 10 years' time. And in the UK, we did have 00:09:00.298 --> 00:09:04.578 a tendency to socialism like everybody else. There was a lot of nationalization, stuff was 00:09:04.578 --> 00:09:10.518 later privatized. But actually in this country, the license to practice, the determination to 00:09:10.518 --> 00:09:16.658 ensure that only people who had the right license were allowed to pursue a trade remained relatively 00:09:16.658 --> 00:09:21.418 rare. And then in the late 20th century, we get this re-embracing of the market. The state is the 00:09:21.418 --> 00:09:27.798 guarantor of competition, consumer rights, and also increasingly, and this is again going back 00:09:27.798 --> 00:09:29.798 as weights and measures function in many ways. 00:09:29.798 --> 00:09:32.198 This idea that not only should the state guarantee competition, 00:09:32.198 --> 00:09:36.318 but it should make sure that consumers had information. 00:09:36.318 --> 00:09:44.558 It should make sure that the scales were true, but it should also empower the consumer by giving them information about what it was that they were buying. 00:09:44.898 --> 00:09:58.558 But alongside that, and equally importantly, we have the growth of the nation state and the growth of national and nationalized systems of education as a way of creating citizens with a common culture and identity. 00:09:58.558 --> 00:10:07.198 and I think it's very important to be aware of how much modern education and 00:10:07.198 --> 00:10:12.338 our idea of a national curriculum in a country is bound up with the growth of 00:10:12.338 --> 00:10:16.578 and the determination to create a sense of national identity. 00:10:18.238 --> 00:10:22.838 National curricula and the nation state go together very closely, 00:10:22.838 --> 00:10:25.518 as indeed do the nation state and compulsory education, 00:10:26.158 --> 00:10:32.318 and the more far-reaching the state, the less its tolerance for private education. 00:10:33.318 --> 00:10:36.158 And then alongside that, you get a growth of welfare services. 00:10:36.418 --> 00:10:39.978 It goes alongside greater wealth, it goes alongside democratization, 00:10:39.978 --> 00:10:44.618 and the conviction that another thing that states should be doing is redistributing, 00:10:44.618 --> 00:10:48.358 making sure that the wealth of the country is distributed more 00:10:48.358 --> 00:10:51.098 more evenly, more fairly among its people, 00:10:51.098 --> 00:10:53.658 and that key services are free at the point of use, 00:10:53.658 --> 00:10:55.338 that there is absolutely a guarantee 00:10:55.338 --> 00:10:57.998 that you can get certain key welfare services, 00:10:57.998 --> 00:11:01.278 whether or not you have the savings to make up for them, 00:11:01.278 --> 00:11:02.098 to pay for them. 00:11:02.098 --> 00:11:04.338 And both these things are fundamental to the way we think 00:11:04.338 --> 00:11:07.038 about what government should do. 00:11:07.038 --> 00:11:08.338 So what does any of this imply 00:11:08.338 --> 00:11:09.638 for the state's role in education? 00:11:09.638 --> 00:11:11.718 Well, first of all, you get this idea 00:11:11.718 --> 00:11:16.758 that all citizens should have an education 00:11:16.758 --> 00:11:18.358 that forms them as citizens. 00:11:18.358 --> 00:11:24.378 This is why if you want a subject which guarantees blood on the carpet, it's not 00:11:24.378 --> 00:11:33.578 maths, it's not science, it's history. History is the battleground in every curriculum development 00:11:33.578 --> 00:11:38.298 process that there has ever been. Not just here, actually we did reasonably well, but also here. 00:11:38.298 --> 00:11:44.298 So you want blood, go for history, both ways. You also get some decent murderers depending on who's 00:11:44.298 --> 00:11:52.538 won in the great curriculum battles. You also have from the state a commitment to equal opportunity 00:11:52.538 --> 00:11:54.378 in terms of access to education. 00:11:54.818 --> 00:11:57.058 And this is related to our concern 00:11:57.058 --> 00:12:00.398 that people should not be barred 00:12:00.398 --> 00:12:06.338 from or access or handicapped because of things that are beyond their control. So one of the 00:12:06.338 --> 00:12:12.178 things that all countries have moved to doing the minute they can afford it pretty much, I think, 00:12:12.258 --> 00:12:17.198 I can't think of any exceptions, is to make schooling free for ever longer periods so that 00:12:17.198 --> 00:12:21.418 no child is disadvantaged by coming from a home where there is very little money or where there 00:12:21.418 --> 00:12:28.398 are parents who really don't think they should be educated. And by making available grants or, 00:12:28.398 --> 00:12:30.358 in our case now increasingly income 00:12:30.358 --> 00:12:32.358 contingent loans which are again 00:12:32.358 --> 00:12:34.218 not a particularly British idea 00:12:34.218 --> 00:12:36.418 available to all 00:12:36.418 --> 00:12:43.238 all citizens. And also ensuring that the gatekeepers who make decisions about what happens to people 00:12:43.238 --> 00:12:48.758 do so fairly and transparently. And that above all is really important in education. Are people 00:12:48.758 --> 00:12:54.118 selected for individual schools fairly? Do they get access to different forms of secondary education 00:12:54.118 --> 00:13:01.278 fairly? Do they get into university fairly? Are they able to go into the job market with a fair 00:13:01.278 --> 00:13:04.218 Fair work. 00:13:04.218 --> 00:13:07.798 Now, also in terms of the state's role in education, 00:13:07.798 --> 00:13:10.058 you have the idea that the state should actually 00:13:10.058 --> 00:13:12.438 provide education. 00:13:12.437 --> 00:13:15.417 This is much, much less universally accepted, 00:13:15.757 --> 00:13:18.737 and I would say actually much less universally accepted today 00:13:18.737 --> 00:13:20.457 than it would have been 40 years ago. 00:13:20.877 --> 00:13:22.897 Today we are much more inclined to feel 00:13:22.897 --> 00:13:25.837 that multiple providers can provide education 00:13:25.837 --> 00:13:28.657 as long as the state is ensuring that people have equal opportunity 00:13:28.657 --> 00:13:30.437 in terms of a call on resources. 00:13:31.117 --> 00:13:33.717 But it was the dominant pattern in early periods 00:13:33.717 --> 00:13:35.477 of universal education in many countries, 00:13:35.837 --> 00:13:38.437 although it's also true that when you sort of unpack this a little bit, 00:13:38.437 --> 00:13:41.097 you find a huge amount of apparently state education 00:13:41.097 --> 00:13:48.457 is actually still more or less state-based, I mean church-based. And again, this is something 00:13:48.457 --> 00:13:50.717 something that's familiar to us in this country. 00:13:50.817 --> 00:13:52.697 It seems extremely strange to Americans, 00:13:53.017 --> 00:13:56.017 but it's also a dominant pattern in a large part of Europe. 00:13:57.177 --> 00:14:00.937 So that's where we got to in terms of the modern state in education. 00:14:01.097 --> 00:14:07.317 But does any of this imply that it suddenly needs to be heavily involved 00:14:07.317 --> 00:14:12.897 in formal assessment processes and the furnishing of qualifications? 00:14:14.977 --> 00:14:16.737 I don't think it does. 00:14:16.737 --> 00:14:19.077 In fact, my answer is no, it doesn't. 00:14:19.137 --> 00:14:20.377 It does not follow. 00:14:21.057 --> 00:14:24.477 A country may decide that the state needs to be heavily involved, 00:14:24.477 --> 00:14:30.797 and assessment. There is nothing in those functions of the modern state, nothing there 00:14:30.797 --> 00:14:36.657 in what it is that it needs to do in terms of opposing monopolies, ensuring free access, 00:14:37.437 --> 00:14:46.137 and indeed creating citizens that says it needs to be heavily involved in the detailed day-to-day 00:14:46.137 --> 00:14:51.917 provision of qualifications and the way they are designed. That's where we are today in this 00:14:51.917 --> 00:14:56.457 country, we are out on a limb in the extent to which we are involved in this way. 00:14:56.457 --> 00:15:00.497 And it's very difficult, unless you 00:15:00.497 --> 00:15:05.697 step back and look at the rest of the world to realize how very odd England is. 00:15:07.857 --> 00:15:15.057 A little bit more history, I'm afraid. Dominant patterns of provision in developed states, 00:15:15.057 --> 00:15:19.217 how the world works. Those of you who were in here earlier would have heard Tina Isaacs talking 00:15:19.217 --> 00:15:24.017 about curriculum versus qualification-based systems. I have to say my perception of the world 00:15:24.017 --> 00:15:28.337 is that on balance, curriculum-based systems are far more common than those which are examination 00:15:28.337 --> 00:15:30.657 and qualification-led at all stages. 00:15:30.957 --> 00:15:33.297 That doesn't mean that there are many systems 00:15:33.297 --> 00:15:36.517 that have as few national qualifications 00:15:36.517 --> 00:15:39.977 or systems as the United States, which is also peculiar in its own way. 00:15:40.557 --> 00:15:45.657 But generally, globally, curriculum-based systems are far more common 00:15:45.657 --> 00:15:49.537 than those which are examination and qualification-led at all stages. 00:15:50.437 --> 00:15:54.037 And the dominant mode of formal accreditation for schools 00:15:54.037 --> 00:16:00.237 is high-stakes accreditation only at the end of upper secondary schooling, 00:16:00.237 --> 00:16:04.137 which is often but not always administered or tightly regulated by the state. 00:16:04.137 --> 00:16:06.277 plus in some countries 00:16:06.277 --> 00:16:08.577 some state involvement in certification 00:16:08.577 --> 00:16:10.737 at the end of lower secondary or compulsory 00:16:10.737 --> 00:16:12.537 schooling. So if you did a 00:16:12.537 --> 00:16:15.117 a sort of a sample of, you know, what does the world do? 00:16:15.337 --> 00:16:17.777 That would be the dominant pattern. 00:16:21.837 --> 00:16:24.037 The other thing which I think is quite interesting, 00:16:24.757 --> 00:16:28.997 again, given where we are in England particularly today, 00:16:29.237 --> 00:16:31.497 is the pattern for vocational assessment, 00:16:31.957 --> 00:16:33.837 which is highly variable. 00:16:33.837 --> 00:16:35.697 It ranges from no formal awards 00:16:35.697 --> 00:16:38.557 to awards given by regulated organizations 00:16:38.557 --> 00:16:39.997 with no direct state oversight 00:16:39.997 --> 00:16:42.157 of the actual standards or exam content, 00:16:42.537 --> 00:16:44.537 and that is Germany, which has, of course, 00:16:44.537 --> 00:16:48.557 the most admired vocational system in the world. 00:16:48.557 --> 00:16:51.817 to freestanding state licensing exams in the US 00:16:51.817 --> 00:16:54.377 to state-organized qualifications in France, 00:16:54.437 --> 00:16:55.937 which is closest to our pattern, 00:16:56.157 --> 00:16:57.397 but for the young, 00:16:57.957 --> 00:17:01.597 for the young in full-time and dedicated education programs. 00:17:02.117 --> 00:17:04.057 And even there, it combines teacher assessment 00:17:04.057 --> 00:17:06.057 of most of the vocational content 00:17:06.057 --> 00:17:07.757 with exam in general education. 00:17:08.457 --> 00:17:11.437 And direct state involvement is almost everywhere 00:17:11.437 --> 00:17:14.617 confined to vocational education training for the young, 00:17:15.657 --> 00:17:17.077 plus, and even here, 00:17:17.077 --> 00:17:18.537 they don't tend to actually write the exams, 00:17:18.617 --> 00:17:20.937 in most cases, some licensed occupations. 00:17:21.977 --> 00:17:24.577 And I would also like to point out 00:17:24.577 --> 00:17:31.757 in this context, given the fact that we are devoting in England such an enormous amount 00:17:31.757 --> 00:17:39.477 of time and effort to the minute oversight and design of qualifications, that the most 00:17:39.477 --> 00:17:44.417 valued certificates and qualifications of all throughout the world are those offered 00:17:44.417 --> 00:17:45.217 by universities. 00:17:45.377 --> 00:17:50.237 And this is not just because universities are top everywhere, if you like. 00:17:51.037 --> 00:17:55.737 The higher education system of the world is increasingly global. 00:17:56.397 --> 00:18:00.597 The degrees that are the most highly valued, if you look at the top lists, 00:18:00.596 --> 00:18:07.056 If you look, for example, at the Times' top list, if you look at the ones that come out of Chinese universities, look at the ones published by American journals. 00:18:07.936 --> 00:18:15.856 The degrees of autonomous universities and systems which are not state-run are those which dominate the top of the league. 00:18:15.856 --> 00:18:18.716 so it's clearly possible 00:18:18.716 --> 00:18:20.736 in 00:18:20.736 --> 00:18:22.916 an environment where there are high stakes 00:18:22.916 --> 00:18:24.696 highly informed consumers 00:18:24.696 --> 00:18:26.456 lots of money in play 00:18:26.456 --> 00:18:28.996 for qualifications to be issued 00:18:28.996 --> 00:18:30.856 which are top of 00:18:30.856 --> 00:18:33.096 the league in quality, respect 00:18:33.096 --> 00:18:34.296 and what they 00:18:34.296 --> 00:18:36.616 what the world thinks of them and 00:18:36.616 --> 00:18:46.076 which are issued by autonomous institutions. So it's not impossible. In general, when the 00:18:46.076 --> 00:18:51.916 state has a weights and measures function, it has taken care of it through the licensing 00:18:51.916 --> 00:18:59.796 and oversight of institutions. And that's particularly the case in terms of the education 00:18:59.796 --> 00:19:00.816 systems of the world. 00:19:02.136 --> 00:19:04.796 Mostly, they don't get involved 00:19:04.796 --> 00:19:06.836 in the minutiae of qualifications. 00:19:07.716 --> 00:19:10.636 They inspect, they regulate, 00:19:11.476 --> 00:19:12.636 they license inspections, 00:19:12.636 --> 00:19:20.196 institutions and they let them get on with it. And the equal access issues are associated 00:19:20.196 --> 00:19:26.596 with a few high-stakes examinations relating to selection decisions and to gatekeeping 00:19:26.596 --> 00:19:36.896 at important points of transition. So, what I want to emphasise is our current English 00:19:36.896 --> 00:19:48.656 system is very peculiar indeed. It always has been. Qualifications have always been 00:19:48.656 --> 00:19:55.776 more important here, which I guess makes it very clear that you can get a lot of qualifications 00:19:55.776 --> 00:19:58.996 without government having to create them. If you go back to one of my very first slides, 00:19:58.996 --> 00:20:02.516 you know, is government there because they wouldn't happen without it? Well, no, clearly 00:20:02.516 --> 00:20:06.296 not. We managed to create an enormous number of qualifications before government ever even 00:20:06.296 --> 00:20:11.796 noticed they were there. You can create qualifications without government. It's very easy to do so. 00:20:12.096 --> 00:20:16.716 We prove it. So qualifications became very important here in a country where actually 00:20:16.716 --> 00:20:18.816 government was relatively uninvolved early on. 00:20:18.936 --> 00:20:20.576 Again, you know, this is English 00:20:20.576 --> 00:20:22.736 uniqueness in that we did a lot of things fairly early 00:20:22.736 --> 00:20:24.676 because we were one of the first countries to, we were 00:20:24.676 --> 00:20:30.196 first country to industrialize. And we therefore developed organically, but based on institutions, 00:20:30.196 --> 00:20:34.596 multiple examination boards which provided academic exams for university entry and matriculation. 00:20:35.876 --> 00:20:40.596 We developed multiple vocational awarding bodies which developed from trade bodies and charities 00:20:40.596 --> 00:20:46.996 and so on. And as a result of this peculiar history, formal qualifications which developed 00:20:46.996 --> 00:20:51.956 organically became more important, especially I would say in vocational areas than in most countries. 00:20:51.956 --> 00:20:58.076 our peculiarity was compounded post-war 00:20:58.076 --> 00:21:00.696 when the Labour government introduced individual subject certification 00:21:01.316 --> 00:21:03.576 That's also very unusual in international terms. 00:21:03.716 --> 00:21:06.416 Most places have group awards, 00:21:06.676 --> 00:21:08.776 whether it's a high school diploma, a baccalaureate, 00:21:09.276 --> 00:21:11.876 an abitur, maturita, whatever. 00:21:12.176 --> 00:21:13.536 We used to have something like that. 00:21:13.596 --> 00:21:16.256 We got rid of it because the Labour government 00:21:16.256 --> 00:21:17.756 was actually convinced that it was important 00:21:17.756 --> 00:21:19.696 for people who might not be able to get the whole award 00:21:19.696 --> 00:21:21.536 to get certification in individual subjects. 00:21:22.816 --> 00:21:25.496 And throughout my lifetime, 00:21:25.956 --> 00:21:28.596 we keep trying to tear history up 00:21:28.596 --> 00:21:30.956 and recreate the old system. 00:21:31.676 --> 00:21:32.736 And the Thomson was the last 00:21:32.736 --> 00:21:34.276 attempt at this. I mean, 00:21:34.676 --> 00:21:36.716 I think we should give up, actually. I think 00:21:36.716 --> 00:21:40.676 We should just live with A-levels and GCSEs and let them develop. 00:21:40.676 --> 00:21:43.876 But by now, we have this other peculiarity, 00:21:43.956 --> 00:21:49.016 that we are a country which is utterly used to individual subject certification. 00:21:49.836 --> 00:21:54.416 But those also, you know, apart from the fact that the Labour government introduced this, 00:21:54.656 --> 00:21:57.996 after that, most of the development was taken forward by the individual exam boards. 00:21:58.096 --> 00:22:00.376 There was no national curriculum until the late 1980s, 00:22:00.676 --> 00:22:04.996 although the exam boards did create a de facto syllabus for middle and upper secondary pupils. 00:22:05.556 --> 00:22:07.136 And I know they created de facto syllabus 00:22:07.136 --> 00:22:08.756 because otherwise the textbook manufacturers 00:22:08.756 --> 00:22:09.596 would have gone bankrupt 00:22:09.596 --> 00:22:11.316 and there's always a symbiotic relationship 00:22:11.316 --> 00:22:12.736 between textbooks and syllabus. 00:22:12.736 --> 00:22:14.916 and anyway. 00:22:16.536 --> 00:22:18.316 And then we had the revolution. 00:22:20.316 --> 00:22:23.756 Now, I want to pause for a minute on this top left corner 00:22:23.756 --> 00:22:25.996 because ever since then, 00:22:26.476 --> 00:22:31.276 as the whole way that government gets involved in assessment has changed 00:22:31.276 --> 00:22:35.616 and above all, as government's involvement in qualifications has changed, 00:22:36.416 --> 00:22:38.876 this has been, if you like, the mantra. 00:22:38.876 --> 00:22:43.696 in the 70s and in the 80s 00:22:43.696 --> 00:22:46.776 Labour and Conservative politicians 00:22:46.776 --> 00:22:48.756 and a large number of parents I have 00:22:48.756 --> 00:22:54.836 to say, became very concerned about the quality of education in schools. And this started with 00:22:54.836 --> 00:22:58.356 Callaghan's Ruskin speech, which is called the Ruskin speech because he gave it at Ruskin 00:22:58.356 --> 00:23:06.176 College in Oxford, which is actually a remarkable institution which provides second chance education 00:23:06.176 --> 00:23:09.816 for people who come through the trade union movement and then they can often do go on 00:23:09.816 --> 00:23:13.976 to Oxford from there. So Callaghan gave a speech at Ruskin College in which he was very concerned 00:23:13.976 --> 00:23:15.696 about what's now currently called 00:23:15.696 --> 00:23:17.396 sort of thought of as progressive education. 00:23:18.216 --> 00:23:20.536 And then the Tories under Mrs. Thatcher 00:23:20.536 --> 00:23:21.576 were also concerned. 00:23:21.716 --> 00:23:24.776 There was the great scandal of Tindale 00:23:24.775 --> 00:23:29.495 school, William Tyndale school in London, which hit all the papers and convinced everybody 00:23:29.495 --> 00:23:33.955 there was a crisis in primary education. And then I think you should never give too little 00:23:33.955 --> 00:23:38.835 weight to Mrs. Thatcher's hairdresser. Mrs. Thatcher's hairdresser was not pleased with 00:23:38.835 --> 00:23:42.495 the primary education that his children were getting. Mrs. Thatcher's hairdresser told 00:23:42.495 --> 00:23:48.875 her this regularly, like every morning. And one of the results of that was the national 00:23:48.875 --> 00:23:50.035 curriculum and national testing. 00:23:53.715 --> 00:23:56.315 But the thing I want to emphasize here is that this had nothing 00:23:56.315 --> 00:24:00.795 whatsoever to do with qualifications. Nobody at this point 00:24:00.795 --> 00:24:04.235 was wandering around saying, O-levels don't give the right answers. 00:24:04.235 --> 00:24:06.595 Nobody at this point was wandering around saying, 00:24:06.595 --> 00:24:08.795 A-level standards have gone through the floor. 00:24:08.795 --> 00:24:13.795 There was no crisis associated with qualifications. None. 00:24:14.795 --> 00:24:18.795 The crisis was about the quality of basic education in primary schools, 00:24:18.795 --> 00:24:20.795 perceived crisis, actual crisis, whichever. 00:24:20.795 --> 00:24:22.795 It was not about qualifications. 00:24:23.795 --> 00:24:27.795 But what it did was it set government off on a path 00:24:27.795 --> 00:24:32.795 justified by a conviction that if it didn't get involved, 00:24:32.795 --> 00:24:36.815 education would fall apart, the major result of it 00:24:36.815 --> 00:24:42.775 of which was a complete takeover, a complete nationalization of the qualification systems 00:24:42.775 --> 00:24:50.695 of this country. And that was a problem because we had so many of them. If we hadn't had very 00:24:50.695 --> 00:24:56.415 many of them, it probably wouldn't have mattered as much. But we did, and they did, and it 00:24:56.415 --> 00:25:04.615 was and it is. So what did we get? We got detailed supervision of, well, by this time, 00:25:04.615 --> 00:25:06.795 GCSEs, that was Keith Joseph's great reform. 00:25:07.115 --> 00:25:08.615 I happen to think it was a great reform, 00:25:08.715 --> 00:25:09.635 but that's another speech. 00:25:10.595 --> 00:25:12.835 Detailed supervision of A-levels. And at the same time, 00:25:12.835 --> 00:25:18.215 coming up on the outside, we had an infatuation with skills as a strategy for growth and productivity, 00:25:18.215 --> 00:25:24.215 which led to NVQs, which were supposed to provide standards and nationally standardized qualifications, 00:25:25.315 --> 00:25:29.235 which would absolutely revolutionize vocational education in the country, 00:25:29.595 --> 00:25:33.215 the efficiency of people moving through the labor market, 00:25:33.655 --> 00:25:39.395 and basically drive all other qualifications out because NVQs were so visibly superior. 00:25:39.395 --> 00:25:48.855 We, at the same time, were getting a growth in the new public management, in which, once again, this country has been... 00:25:48.855 --> 00:25:54.895 a leader, whether you think being a great leader in new public management is a good thing or a bad thing is, 00:25:54.895 --> 00:26:00.615 you know, open to argument, but it also added to what was happening. 00:26:00.615 --> 00:26:03.735 So we have the growth of accountability targets and public service agreements, 00:26:03.735 --> 00:26:06.295 which require departments to achieve measured outcomes. 00:26:06.295 --> 00:26:11.335 I actually have to say that I have a sort of, you know, mixed view of this. 00:26:11.335 --> 00:26:14.335 I think new public management and measured outcomes and targets are, 00:26:14.335 --> 00:26:17.415 unfortunately, sometimes good, sometimes bad. 00:26:17.415 --> 00:26:20.215 But I think in this case, they had a particular outcome 00:26:20.215 --> 00:26:22.715 which was extremely bad, and I'll come to that in a second. 00:26:23.895 --> 00:26:24.875 So anyway... 00:26:24.875 --> 00:26:29.195 Alongside that, we had the public service agreements, which required departments to achieve measured outcomes, 00:26:29.195 --> 00:26:35.495 and we had government measuring its own success publicly by how outcomes were achieved. 00:26:36.515 --> 00:26:37.555 And that's the killer. 00:26:38.655 --> 00:26:43.395 Government measured its own success by things which it increasingly tightly controlled. 00:26:44.635 --> 00:26:47.995 And at the same time, because we were in a qualification-driven system, 00:26:48.455 --> 00:26:53.155 and we were very much tied to this, and in fact increasingly tied to it, 00:26:53.155 --> 00:26:56.835 because of all the effort being put into developing NVQs, 00:26:56.835 --> 00:26:58.995 and then later new vocational qualifications 00:26:58.995 --> 00:27:00.895 for full-term education. 00:27:00.895 --> 00:27:08.455 The need to count things, which is itself generated by the output culture, the league table culture, 00:27:08.875 --> 00:27:16.295 then creates another need for common measurement scales for all qualifications with levels and points attached to them. 00:27:17.155 --> 00:27:22.275 And once you start down the measured outcomes road, and once you start down the road which says, 00:27:22.275 --> 00:27:28.675 I am going to measure performance, and I, the government, am going to measure my performance in terms of those outcomes, 00:27:28.675 --> 00:27:30.855 you inescapably end up 00:27:30.855 --> 00:27:32.175 with the need 00:27:32.175 --> 00:27:34.175 for this common measurement scale. 00:27:36.095 --> 00:27:36.915 So the regulation 00:27:36.915 --> 00:27:39.055 Later agencies come and go and increase in number, 00:27:39.215 --> 00:27:41.375 and I'm not going to spend hours on them with people in this room 00:27:41.375 --> 00:27:44.655 who know a great deal more about many of them than I do. 00:27:45.055 --> 00:27:46.215 But that's where we are now. 00:27:46.715 --> 00:27:48.815 Common measurement scales, outputs, targets, 00:27:48.995 --> 00:27:50.335 government measuring itself by it, 00:27:50.595 --> 00:27:55.415 and a qualification system which is more highly regulated, 00:27:55.415 --> 00:27:58.835 with regulation going far further into the adult population 00:27:58.835 --> 00:28:02.015 and encompassing a far greater number of qualifications 00:28:02.015 --> 00:28:03.755 than any other country on earth. 00:28:04.435 --> 00:28:06.555 So to repeat this, we are very peculiar. 00:28:06.915 --> 00:28:12.935 So is this still a weights and measures activity in any normal way? 00:28:12.935 --> 00:28:19.895 more sense of the word? Is government basically just doing what it has always done in marketplaces, 00:28:20.195 --> 00:28:26.275 which is saying, are the scales true? Are you getting the measured quantity that you think 00:28:26.275 --> 00:28:30.875 you're getting? Are you being cheated by the people who are selling you and providing you 00:28:30.875 --> 00:28:39.355 with qualifications? Or have we gone beyond that to where far from measuring the scales 00:28:39.355 --> 00:28:43.215 and ensuring that the quality is good and that we know what we're getting. 00:28:43.835 --> 00:28:46.635 Government is deciding what should be stocked. 00:28:47.195 --> 00:28:48.495 You can only sell tomatoes. 00:28:48.954 --> 00:28:50.794 Oh, and you can have a few chestnuts on the side. 00:28:52.354 --> 00:28:55.234 It seems to me clear that we've definitely got to that point. 00:28:55.654 --> 00:28:59.674 We've got to the point where government is deciding what should be offered, 00:29:00.114 --> 00:29:01.134 what can be sold. 00:29:02.034 --> 00:29:06.474 And unfortunately, we've also been going even further than that in recent years. 00:29:08.074 --> 00:29:13.034 Government has not only been specifying what should be offered 00:29:13.034 --> 00:29:14.034 and what it should look like. 00:29:14.034 --> 00:29:17.054 It has also actually been going into production on its own behalf. 00:29:17.054 --> 00:29:22.434 so you know it's as though you've got this this stock of vegetables and most of them are just 00:29:22.434 --> 00:29:24.974 are still produced by regulated consumers but 00:29:24.974 --> 00:29:29.034 somehow out there in the middle there's this new type of chard which has got a lot of government 00:29:29.034 --> 00:29:31.974 investment behind it and you are going to eat it because it's good for you. 00:29:34.614 --> 00:29:37.814 So government's role has been transformed and I think this is really the point. 00:29:38.574 --> 00:29:42.594 It isn't just concentrating on its traditional weights and measures function. It isn't just 00:29:42.594 --> 00:29:49.074 checking that qualifications give true weight, which in the past it did and much of the world 00:29:49.074 --> 00:29:54.914 it can still do, even if these are other government, by basically regulating in the sense of checking 00:29:54.914 --> 00:30:00.994 that processes are right, that procedures are right, as indeed is the case in my own institution. We do not 00:30:00.994 --> 00:30:08.754 have each of our degrees accredited. The government regulates the institution, it checks the procedures, 00:30:08.754 --> 00:30:16.674 even that's quite new, I think it's not necessarily such a bad thing, but that is a weights and measures function. 00:30:17.174 --> 00:30:23.374 What is happening in non-university qualifications is no longer a weights and measures function. 00:30:23.374 --> 00:30:30.714 It's what's known as in the trade tight supervision at best and in many key cases 00:30:30.714 --> 00:30:37.014 direct production. So it's not just ensuring a common curriculum are 00:30:37.014 --> 00:30:45.014 It is deeply in there as a supervisor and a producer on a scale which is unparalleled. 00:30:45.014 --> 00:30:52.014 Now, I've said it's peculiar, I've said it's unparalleled, I've said nobody else in the world does it. 00:30:52.014 --> 00:30:59.014 This activity assumes that government can be effective and impartial. 00:30:59.014 --> 00:31:06.014 Indeed, it implies that it is more effective, maybe more efficient and more impartial than independent bodies can ever be. 00:31:06.014 --> 00:31:08.014 That is the justification. 00:31:09.014 --> 00:31:13.034 The role of government is to do things which the market can't do better. 00:31:13.034 --> 00:31:17.514 It's to do things which generally civil society won't generate on its own. 00:31:17.514 --> 00:31:24.954 And the general assumption in this is that you do it if government can do it better. 00:31:24.954 --> 00:31:27.354 Because there are always downsides to it. 00:31:27.354 --> 00:31:33.914 Well, most of us are pretty unconvinced that it's being done very efficiently. 00:31:33.914 --> 00:31:38.234 And most of us are pretty unconvinced that it's being done very effectively. 00:31:39.174 --> 00:31:43.334 And, you know, if you look at think tank publications 00:31:43.334 --> 00:31:44.274 across the spectrum, 00:31:44.374 --> 00:31:45.454 if you even look at sort of, you know, 00:31:45.674 --> 00:31:46.994 politician speeches, 00:31:47.514 --> 00:31:49.054 criticism of the current competitiveness 00:31:49.054 --> 00:31:53.794 complexity. This is bread and butter. You churn it out. You say, of course, we're going to simplify 00:31:53.794 --> 00:32:02.194 it. It's not good. It needs to be simplified. So at some level, there's a consensus. 00:32:04.274 --> 00:32:09.794 That's one half of it. On the other side, I would like to suggest to you, 00:32:10.394 --> 00:32:14.054 public confidence in the examination system is at an all-time low. 00:32:14.054 --> 00:32:21.474 actually nobody believes in A-levels anymore they maybe should and if you're the minister 00:32:21.474 --> 00:32:25.074 if you're secretary of state for education or you're the the opposition of course you you give 00:32:25.074 --> 00:32:29.874 your regulation speeches and quite rightly about how kids have worked hard and so on and so forth. 00:32:30.494 --> 00:32:36.274 But given that the argument for this intensive state intervention was that the system couldn't 00:32:36.274 --> 00:32:39.874 cope on its own, that it was being undermined, that we were going into a crisis, that this was 00:32:39.874 --> 00:32:45.274 something where the current institutions weren't developing it, it is rather extraordinary that we 00:32:45.274 --> 00:32:53.674 are now in a situation where basically come August the A-level jokes get rolled out and this is the 00:32:53.674 --> 00:32:58.174 something which convinces me that we really have lost the confidence of the population. 00:32:58.174 --> 00:33:01.094 And that's the diploma. 00:33:01.094 --> 00:33:07.374 Diploma has had an enormous amount of money put behind it, really enormous. 00:33:07.714 --> 00:33:11.634 Institutions have been given large amounts, not merely of support, but of money to do it. 00:33:12.814 --> 00:33:17.854 And if you compare the uptake of the diploma with the uptake of the GNVQ, 00:33:18.534 --> 00:33:23.414 what is striking is that people just don't trust it this time around. 00:33:24.314 --> 00:33:27.354 That actually, if you look at kids and their parents, 00:33:27.994 --> 00:33:32.034 They don't believe that government is an honest producer of qualifications. 00:33:33.034 --> 00:33:37.114 Any more than anybody actually believes that the standard of A-levels is the same as it 00:33:37.113 --> 00:33:44.113 was 20 years ago. It may or it may not be, but nobody believes it. And the, you know, 00:33:44.193 --> 00:33:51.553 just ludicrously tiny uptake for the diploma is what has convinced me that actually, in 00:33:51.553 --> 00:33:57.773 terms of creating confidence, not only have we not increased confidence in the qualification 00:33:57.773 --> 00:34:05.953 system, we have destroyed it. But wasn't that the bad old days? Doesn't off-call signal 00:34:05.953 --> 00:34:09.713 and move back to light regulation and emphasis on truthful product labeling. 00:34:09.713 --> 00:34:13.133 Well I would love to think it did. 00:34:13.133 --> 00:34:24.833 I do also absolutely accept that its president, senior management and chief regulator, are believers in light regulation and will do what they can to run things that way. 00:34:25.593 --> 00:34:38.193 But I have to say that the structures that they inherit, the structures they receive, the legislation is currently going through Parliament, is not going to make this easy for them. 00:34:38.233 --> 00:34:41.233 In fact, I'm willing to wager a large amount of money 00:34:41.233 --> 00:34:43.573 that if it goes through and remains the way it is, 00:34:43.773 --> 00:34:45.713 we will not get light regulation. 00:34:46.033 --> 00:34:49.153 We will not get a rolling back of... 00:34:49.153 --> 00:34:56.233 tight control, we will actually get more control, more interference, and a further tightening of the 00:34:56.233 --> 00:35:03.013 screw on the nature content and direction of qualification structures. That's because of the 00:35:03.013 --> 00:35:07.833 way that the legislature, it is not, unfortunately, as I said, unfortunately not, this is not the end of 00:35:07.833 --> 00:35:11.813 the bad old days, not the way the current legislation proposes, not the way Ofqual is currently 00:35:11.813 --> 00:35:18.533 constituted, and not the way human people, beings behave. I want to just highlight two or three more 00:35:18.533 --> 00:35:25.173 things quickly. I said right back at the beginning when I was talking about the role of the state which is state which 00:35:25.173 --> 00:35:26.533 It's my bread and butter. 00:35:26.633 --> 00:35:27.113 That's what I do. 00:35:27.173 --> 00:35:28.433 I teach public sector management. 00:35:28.613 --> 00:35:29.833 I teach what the state should do. 00:35:30.053 --> 00:35:31.513 I do this. 00:35:32.053 --> 00:35:34.193 One of the things that the modern state is meant to do 00:35:34.193 --> 00:35:36.413 is to fight monopolies, 00:35:37.153 --> 00:35:38.413 to create competition, 00:35:38.613 --> 00:35:40.593 to make it easy for there to be new entry, 00:35:41.113 --> 00:35:43.993 to have a level playing field. 00:35:44.413 --> 00:35:46.313 That's what the whole single market of the EU 00:35:46.313 --> 00:35:47.033 is meant to be about. 00:35:47.113 --> 00:35:48.433 That's why there's this big fight at the moment 00:35:48.433 --> 00:35:50.453 over subsidies to opal. 00:35:50.853 --> 00:35:53.913 That's part of the role of the modern state. 00:35:53.913 --> 00:35:58.233 the danger with regulated industries always and this is something that 00:35:58.233 --> 00:36:01.193 everybody recognizes anybody who's worked in any regulated 00:36:01.193 --> 00:36:07.093 industry is regulatory capture. There's a mutual self-interest of regulators and established 00:36:07.093 --> 00:36:11.353 producers as opposed to new entrants and innovators, but there's also the fact that 00:36:11.353 --> 00:36:16.333 regulation tends to reduce competition. So it's only justified when it's the lesser evil 00:36:16.333 --> 00:36:23.113 because it makes it harder to enter. It reduces the responsiveness to multiple signals from the 00:36:23.113 --> 00:36:27.433 market if it is a competitive market, and at its most extreme it creates monopolies. 00:36:27.433 --> 00:36:32.593 and I would suggest to you that the current structure for qualifications of 00:36:32.593 --> 00:36:37.213 this country is it doing exactly that it's actually making an incredible 00:36:37.213 --> 00:36:41.973 difficult to create new qualifications and incredibly difficult to start as a new person, 00:36:41.973 --> 00:36:47.873 as a new organization offering them. That actually, for better or worse, we have created 00:36:47.873 --> 00:36:52.673 a situation in which the large operators, however much they may hate the current situation, 00:36:52.773 --> 00:36:56.933 nonetheless have a stake in it, with apologies to my hosts, because they're in there. 00:36:58.273 --> 00:37:03.773 And it may drive them mad, but at least they're in there. Whereas actually to create anything 00:37:03.773 --> 00:37:04.553 new to have 00:37:04.553 --> 00:37:05.073 anybody new 00:37:05.073 --> 00:37:05.653 starting up 00:37:05.653 --> 00:37:06.193 is very 00:37:06.193 --> 00:37:06.853 difficult and 00:37:06.853 --> 00:37:07.813 the problems 00:37:07.813 --> 00:37:08.613 associated with 00:37:08.613 --> 00:37:09.333 creating a new 00:37:09.333 --> 00:37:11.173 qualification are 00:37:11.173 --> 00:37:12.113 just enormous 00:37:12.113 --> 00:37:13.233 I mean it takes 00:37:13.233 --> 00:37:17.233 forever. So you're not going to do it unless you're going to have a huge market or unless 00:37:17.233 --> 00:37:19.013 government's going to pay you. And what does that say? 00:37:21.593 --> 00:37:25.253 The other reason that I don't think that the new structure makes any major difference 00:37:25.253 --> 00:37:29.173 is that we are still in a situation where governments are measuring their own success 00:37:29.173 --> 00:37:32.693 by the performance of tightly supervised or nationalized agencies. 00:37:33.793 --> 00:37:37.453 And Charles Goodhart coined this law, and it is a law, 00:37:37.453 --> 00:37:41.573 and it's absolutely... I defy anybody 00:37:41.573 --> 00:37:43.133 to find me corporate to counter examples, 00:37:43.133 --> 00:37:47.013 which says, any measure used for control purposes is unreliable. 00:37:47.013 --> 00:37:49.253 In other words, if you control the measure 00:37:49.253 --> 00:37:53.973 of the output and you are being judged by it and you are using it to hand out money and to give 00:37:53.973 --> 00:37:59.173 yourself a pat on the back that outcome measure is going to become fallible and it's not a question 00:37:59.173 --> 00:38:05.013 of if it's a question of just how quickly and we are still in a situation where government is 00:38:05.013 --> 00:38:11.093 controlling qualifications and judging its success and handing out points on the basis of outputs 00:38:11.093 --> 00:38:16.053 which it measures and controls and nothing about the splitting off of offqual from qca has changed 00:38:16.053 --> 00:38:16.293 that. 00:38:17.493 --> 00:38:18.293 The third 00:38:18.293 --> 00:38:19.193 reason why 00:38:19.193 --> 00:38:19.533 I think we 00:38:19.533 --> 00:38:19.853 still have a 00:38:19.853 --> 00:38:20.493 problem is 00:38:20.493 --> 00:38:21.053 that experience 00:38:21.053 --> 00:38:21.853 indicates that 00:38:21.853 --> 00:38:22.473 governments have 00:38:22.473 --> 00:38:23.473 little ability 00:38:23.473 --> 00:38:24.393 or incentive 00:38:24.393 --> 00:38:24.873 and there are 00:38:24.873 --> 00:38:25.273 books 00:38:25.273 --> 00:38:29.493 on this, you know, so I will just say take this on trust, to take account of costs. I mean, that's 00:38:29.493 --> 00:38:33.693 not what governments do. It's not the way they're made, you know, why would they? 00:38:34.793 --> 00:38:39.353 They're not the ones who, you know, they worry at some level about the total tax burden, but that's 00:38:39.353 --> 00:38:45.493 about it. And the other thing is that, and this is what I mean about human behaviour, public agencies 00:38:45.493 --> 00:38:52.873 like any other body, like my department in my university, like my university, like an awarding 00:38:52.873 --> 00:38:54.133 any agency 00:38:54.133 --> 00:38:55.773 seeks to promote 00:38:55.773 --> 00:38:56.893 its own survival 00:38:56.893 --> 00:38:57.953 at the most minimal 00:38:57.953 --> 00:38:59.153 its own importance 00:38:59.153 --> 00:38:59.753 its power 00:38:59.753 --> 00:39:00.413 its size 00:39:00.413 --> 00:39:01.293 it wants to protect 00:39:01.292 --> 00:39:08.692 itself, it wants to make it difficult to get rid of it. For that reason, among others, if agencies 00:39:08.692 --> 00:39:15.352 are given powers, they will sooner or later use them. That's another law. If you give an agency a 00:39:15.352 --> 00:39:20.792 power, it will sooner or later use it. And entrepreneurial agencies, of which fortunately 00:39:20.792 --> 00:39:28.032 that's a subset, entrepreneurial agencies will build on their remit, be creative in suggesting 00:39:28.032 --> 00:39:30.532 the need for further action and progressively extend their reach. 00:39:32.292 --> 00:39:37.312 I would like to offer as an example something which I apologise to our foreign visitors, but which I 00:39:37.312 --> 00:39:43.972 think everybody in the room apart from them will recognize. It's the case of Ofsted and the working 00:39:43.972 --> 00:39:50.872 mothers, or to be exact, Ofsted and the two policewomen who were sharing child care. 00:39:52.892 --> 00:40:00.052 Two policewomen who were sharing child care were visited by an Ofsted inspector who informed them 00:40:00.052 --> 00:40:05.052 what they were doing was illegal because they were looking after each other's children while 00:40:05.052 --> 00:40:08.852 while they were working part-time and they were not registered and inspected. 00:40:10.572 --> 00:40:13.332 And therefore they had to stop doing it. 00:40:13.332 --> 00:40:14.332 Immediately. 00:40:15.332 --> 00:40:18.332 I used to, when I lived in the United States, belong to a babysitting co-op. 00:40:18.412 --> 00:40:20.132 That would clearly have been illegal too. 00:40:20.212 --> 00:40:22.412 If anyone wants to ask me to elaborate on this, 00:40:22.492 --> 00:40:25.972 I promise you, under Ofsted regulations, it was definitely illegal. 00:40:26.052 --> 00:40:30.972 Now, the Ofsted statement, when this hit the press, as indeed it did, 00:40:31.052 --> 00:40:34.692 I don't know how quickly, I think it's sort of pretty quickly. 00:40:34.772 --> 00:40:40.692 I think one thing was to say that they were, 00:40:40.692 --> 00:40:44.292 And they were quite right following the legislation 00:40:44.292 --> 00:40:49.352 that the 2006 Child Care Act said anyone in England 00:40:49.352 --> 00:40:54.312 looking after children for reward must be registered and inspected. Now actually 00:40:54.312 --> 00:40:59.912 Ofsted were quite right. If reward was only money there are a lot of things that 00:40:59.912 --> 00:41:04.152 people are currently taxed on that they wouldn't be taxed on. You know the the 00:41:04.152 --> 00:41:09.992 revenue is quite clear if you receive a car that's a taxable reward and so Ofsted's 00:41:09.992 --> 00:41:14.152 statement in September when this first blew up was reward is not just a case of 00:41:14.152 --> 00:41:15.712 to money changing hands. 00:41:16.652 --> 00:41:21.752 By last week, when, if anybody's interested 00:41:21.752 --> 00:41:25.372 in the national response, I refer you to the BBC website, 00:41:25.372 --> 00:41:28.452 where they had to close for comments after 24 hours. 00:41:30.532 --> 00:41:35.152 By last week, when ministers had become very, very concerned 00:41:35.152 --> 00:41:38.372 to stop this, and were announcing that they had basically 00:41:38.372 --> 00:41:40.592 instructed Ofsted to change their interpretation, 00:41:40.592 --> 00:41:43.692 Ofsted was offering a rather different press release. 00:41:43.692 --> 00:41:46.492 Ofsted welcomes the moves to clarify the regulations. 00:41:47.532 --> 00:41:49.712 But actually they were right. 00:41:49.712 --> 00:41:55.272 Local government surveillance powers is another one. 00:41:55.352 --> 00:41:59.312 There are now tens of thousands of requests made by local government 00:41:59.392 --> 00:42:01.392 to engage in surveillance of 00:42:01.392 --> 00:42:06.232 citizens to see whether they are putting their rubbish in other people's bins, living somewhere 00:42:06.232 --> 00:42:13.352 which is not the catchment area for their schools, and so on. The regulation of investigatory 00:42:13.352 --> 00:42:19.812 powers, according to Lord Morris of Aberaven in the House of Lords in June, has been used in ways 00:42:19.812 --> 00:42:23.192 that were never intended as an umbrella for all sorts of activities by public organisations. 00:42:23.652 --> 00:42:28.712 It was categorically denied by the Home Office at the time that it would apply to local authorities. 00:42:28.712 --> 00:42:32.892 But it didn't say anything about local authorities not being able to apply. 00:42:32.892 --> 00:42:35.892 In fact, if you look at the legislation, it's perfectly clear that local authorities can 00:42:35.892 --> 00:42:37.412 apply and local authorities don't. 00:42:37.412 --> 00:42:37.832 which is due. 00:42:39.232 --> 00:42:40.692 So how might this apply to Ofqual? 00:42:41.512 --> 00:42:43.932 Well, what we have at the moment 00:42:43.932 --> 00:42:45.292 is we have a double whammy. 00:42:46.212 --> 00:42:49.272 We have a situation under the legislation 00:42:49.272 --> 00:42:49.852 it's going through 00:42:49.852 --> 00:42:51.892 where bodies can be regulated 00:42:51.892 --> 00:42:55.132 and qualifications can be accredited. 00:42:56.272 --> 00:42:58.612 And this is already two layers. 00:42:59.192 --> 00:43:00.992 If I again sort of refer you to 00:43:00.992 --> 00:43:02.152 the chambers of commerce 00:43:02.152 --> 00:43:04.352 who give out the qualifications 00:43:04.352 --> 00:43:05.972 for German apprenticeships, 00:43:05.972 --> 00:43:07.932 or if I refer you to any of our universities, 00:43:08.152 --> 00:43:08.992 we have one layer. 00:43:09.212 --> 00:43:09.892 We're regulated. 00:43:10.052 --> 00:43:12.052 We don't have the individual degrees 00:43:12.052 --> 00:43:13.432 or the individual core 00:43:13.432 --> 00:43:18.052 into the center any more than an individual chamber of commerce in Germany has to send 00:43:18.052 --> 00:43:19.752 their exam papers into the federal government. 00:43:20.832 --> 00:43:23.452 So we've really got one more layer in regulation and accreditation. 00:43:23.572 --> 00:43:27.232 We also have reserve powers, which include the ability to call in any qualifications 00:43:27.232 --> 00:43:29.912 which a regulated body has not submitted for full accreditation. 00:43:31.012 --> 00:43:36.772 We also, in the legislation, have an additional layer which wasn't there before, which I don't 00:43:36.772 --> 00:43:40.732 want to spend ages on for those lucky people who don't know about it, which is guided learning 00:43:40.732 --> 00:43:45.292 hours which is again something which we never had before but which I submit to 00:43:45.292 --> 00:43:49.452 you does not sound to me like a rolling back of the the regulatory 00:43:49.451 --> 00:43:58.891 state. And we also have something else, because Ofqual is the inheritor and beneficiary of 00:43:58.891 --> 00:44:08.351 QCA's entrepreneurial activities. And I have been really surprised today by how accepting 00:44:08.351 --> 00:44:11.951 of the qualifications and credit framework everybody at this conference seems to be. 00:44:12.191 --> 00:44:18.011 I find it a truly extraordinary creation. There is nothing in legislation about the qualifications 00:44:18.011 --> 00:44:20.271 and synchronic framing that I've been able to find. 00:44:20.271 --> 00:44:22.211 As I go around Whitehall and Westminster, 00:44:22.211 --> 00:44:24.271 nobody has ever heard of it. 00:44:24.271 --> 00:44:25.471 I mean, literally, including 00:44:25.471 --> 00:44:28.991 people who are working on education, including really senior people, I'm not talking about 00:44:28.991 --> 00:44:32.811 civil servants. If you talk to politicians, if you talk to people in think tanks, if you 00:44:32.811 --> 00:44:36.991 talk to journalists, if you talk to commentators, if you talk to just about anybody, they have 00:44:36.991 --> 00:44:45.211 never heard of this thing. And yet it is an absolutely enormously ambitious undertaking, 00:44:45.611 --> 00:44:51.871 which was set up by QCA without any statutory requirement, and which, as I said, as far as 00:44:51.871 --> 00:44:54.071 I can see, continues to have no statutory basis. 00:44:55.211 --> 00:44:57.651 And I would like, with great thanks to the AAT 00:44:57.651 --> 00:44:59.411 for allowing me to quote them, 00:44:59.531 --> 00:45:01.491 to just refer to what they've said 00:45:01.491 --> 00:45:06.591 about it. They are a relatively small, successful awarding body, which has very few qualifications. 00:45:07.671 --> 00:45:11.931 Their view has been that it has imposed a significant administrative and financial burden 00:45:11.931 --> 00:45:16.451 with no obvious benefit to students or employers. And they have also worked out with detailed 00:45:16.451 --> 00:45:21.611 breakdowns that between 2008 and 2010, for their very small number of qualifications, 00:45:22.151 --> 00:45:25.991 they are going to have to spend effectively £600,000 reworking those to fit with the 00:45:25.991 --> 00:45:33.311 qualifications and credit framework, without which they will not get recognition as a regulated 00:45:33.311 --> 00:45:36.951 awarding body, let alone accreditation of their qualifications. 00:45:37.511 --> 00:45:40.511 Now, this is the sort of thing that I mean. 00:45:40.511 --> 00:45:51.951 This is a framework which is non-statutory, highly restrictive, creates strong disincentives to innovate, is extremely expensive to implement, and is justified on two grounds. 00:45:52.191 --> 00:46:01.611 It's justified publicly on the grounds that without all of this, somehow the population of this country is going to have imposed on it dreadful qualifications. 00:46:01.731 --> 00:46:02.991 So it will suddenly wake up one morning 00:46:02.991 --> 00:46:04.191 and find it's taken qualifications 00:46:04.191 --> 00:46:07.331 which have no value, no credibility, are dreadful. 00:46:07.851 --> 00:46:09.531 And therefore, we've got to have all of this 00:46:09.531 --> 00:46:10.851 because of this terrible danger, 00:46:10.911 --> 00:46:13.531 which we only just escaped at the time that, you know, 00:46:13.531 --> 00:46:15.971 but I don't know when, when NCVQ was set up perhaps. 00:46:16.691 --> 00:46:19.331 And it's also valuable, and this is the thing which really shocked me, 00:46:19.391 --> 00:46:21.691 when I hear people promoting it, do you know what they promoted, 00:46:21.871 --> 00:46:23.651 the way they promoted it, they say it's great. 00:46:24.111 --> 00:46:27.431 You take these units and you can put them towards several qualifications. 00:46:27.991 --> 00:46:31.351 Do you realise how many more qualifications we'll be able to deliver 00:46:31.351 --> 00:46:33.111 once we've got this? 00:46:33.771 --> 00:46:37.391 And I can see the stars in senior civil servants' eyes. 00:46:37.931 --> 00:46:42.591 Look at that, look at that as a way of measuring how successful we have been. 00:46:43.531 --> 00:46:49.551 So I'm afraid my view is that we have gone 00:46:49.551 --> 00:46:52.911 well beyond what the state's role should be in assessment. 00:46:53.371 --> 00:46:57.811 There are two things that we have a right to do as a state, a real role. 00:46:58.111 --> 00:46:59.651 One is related to the national curriculum, 00:46:59.831 --> 00:47:03.251 making sure that the national curriculum is delivered and assessed by schools, 00:47:03.371 --> 00:47:06.511 and that can be quite informal, as it is in most of the world. 00:47:07.071 --> 00:47:09.911 And the second thing we do have is we have a weights and measures function, 00:47:09.911 --> 00:47:12.991 which the state has to carry out. 00:47:13.531 --> 00:47:16.451 But in my view, it has gone well beyond that, 00:47:16.451 --> 00:47:19.051 and in doing so has destroyed its ability 00:47:19.131 --> 00:47:20.931 to do the thing it was supposed to do. 00:47:23.051 --> 00:47:25.571 The weights and measures function cannot be carried out 00:47:25.571 --> 00:47:32.771 out effectively by an institution which is itself producing the thing it is supposed to be measuring. 00:47:33.371 --> 00:47:38.091 The government has moved beyond being an inspector to being a producer and therefore cannot be an 00:47:38.091 --> 00:47:43.331 honest inspector anymore. The state should be reducing monopolies and cartels. It is actually 00:47:43.331 --> 00:47:50.051 creating barriers to innovation. The state should justifiably have broad educational aims but we 00:47:50.051 --> 00:47:56.111 already have a national curriculum. So in my view we need to backpedal very fast 00:47:56.111 --> 00:48:01.591 and restore a marketplace and qualifications in which the state has its 00:48:01.591 --> 00:48:07.111 genuine core role and no other. And I would like to finish with a picture of my very favourite 00:48:07.111 --> 00:48:13.171 market, which just shows that I'm a metropolitan creature. That's Borough Market. And Borough 00:48:13.171 --> 00:48:19.311 Market is a monument to what you can do when you have light regulation and awaits and measures 00:48:19.311 --> 00:48:26.891 function. It is a huge success. It has new things every week. Nobody gets poisoned and it is heaving 00:48:26.891 --> 00:48:31.571 with clients. And it is in every guidebook to London. Thank you.