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Examination boards in the United Kingdom (now more often called awarding bodies or "awarding organisations) are the examination boards responsible for setting and awarding secondary education level qualifications, such as GCSEs, Standard Grades, A Levels, Highers and vocational qualifications, to students in the United Kingdom. Grades that can be awarded are the following:
(GCSE)
A*
A
B
C
Most employers in the UK look for qualifications above and including grade C)
D
E
F
G
U
(BTEC)
Distinction*
Distinction
Merit
Pass
Fail
All grades indicate a pass with the exception of a U grade at GCSE and Fail at BTEC. Most courses at GCSE come in Higher (A*-C/D) and Lower (D-G) tiers. Until the mid-1990s, academic exam boards and vocational accreditors were run very much as separate organisations. In more recent times, this distinction has been removed, with all the term 'awarding bodies' now being used. This article focuses on the contemporary and historical awarding bodies that set academic exams in state schools. In everyday terminology, these organisations are still referred to as 'exam boards'.
Broadly speaking, the UK has (and has always had) two separate school systems: one for England, Wales and Northern Ireland and one for Scotland. As a result, two separate sets of exam boards have developed.
Unusually, England, Wales and Northern Ireland have several exam boards, with schools and colleges able to freely choose between them on a subject-by-subject basis. Currently, there are seven exam boards available to state schools:
AQA (Assessment and Qualifications Alliance)
CIE (University of Cambridge International Examinations)
CCEA (Council for the Curriculum, Examinations & Assessment)
Edexcel (Pearson Edexcel as of April 2013)
ICAAE (International Curriculum and Assessment Agency Examinations)
OCR (Oxford, Cambridge and RSA Examinations)
WJEC (Welsh Joint Education Committee)
Though the exam boards have regional roots (see below), they are all nationwide, though the CCEA is not very active outside of its native Northern Ireland. Most offer a range of qualifications, though not all boards offer every qualification in every area (Edexcel, for example, offers a great deal of vocational qualifications, while the WJEC is the only board to offer A Level Film Studies). In particular, the ICAAE is very specialised, offering only a small number of business-related GCSEs and is far and away the smallest Ofqual-approved exam board for state schools. CIE is another exception: it is traditionally an international exam board, but now offers the Cambridge Pre-U and Cambridge International Certificate to state schools.
Schools and colleges have a completely free choice between the boards, depending on the qualification offered. Most schools use a mixture of boards for their GCSE qualifications, with a similar situation existing at A Level. (It is worth noting that a school using, say, OCR for GCSE History is perfectly free to pick a different board for A Level History.)
School Certificate and Higher School Certificate
In 1918, the first national qualifications for England, Wales and Northern Ireland were introduced: the School Certificate, taken at 16, and the Higher School Certificate, taken at 18.The existing exam boards started offering the new qualifications, normally in place of their own qualifications.
In 1930, the University of London Extension Board renamed itself the University of London Matriculation and School Examinations Council before becoming University of London University Entrance and School Examinations Council and School Examinations Department in 1951.
The University of Durham Matriculation and School Examination Board renamed itself the Durham University Examinations Board in the 1930s.
The Welsh Joint Education Committee (WJEC) was founded by the Welsh local authorities in 1948. It took over many of the Central Welsh Board's responsibilities, including running Wales's exam system.
GCE (O Level and A Level)
In 1951, the General Certificate of Education (GCE) was introduced. It was split into two stages: Ordinary Level (O Level, taken at 16) and Advanced Level (A Level, taken at 18). These qualifications replaced the School Certificate and the Higher School Certificate respectively.
The existing exam boards offered the GCE, alongside the Northern Ireland Schools Examination Council .
These boards were soon joined by the Associated Examining Board (AEB), which was founded by City & Guilds in 1953.
The Southern Universities' Joint Board for School Examinations was founded in 1954 as a successor to the University of Bristol School Examinations Council.
The Durham University Examinations Board ceased to exist in 1964.
The University of London University Entrance and School Examinations Council and School Examinations Department was renamed the University of London School Examinations Board in 1984.
CSE
In 1965, the Certificate of Secondary Education (CSE) was introduced. It was aimed at the 80% 16-year-old students who did not take O Levels and, until that point, had left school with no qualifications.[10] CSEs were administered on a local basis with local boards offering the qualifications. The local boards in England were new organisations, while in Wales and Northern Ireland (where universities did not control the existing boards), the existing boards were used. The CSE boards were:
Associated Lancashire Schools Board
East Anglian Examinations Board
East Midland Regional Examinations Board
Metropolitan Regional Examination Board
Middlesex Regional Examination Board
Northern Ireland Schools Examination Council
Northern Regional Examinations Board
North West Regional Examinations Board
South East Regional Examinations Board
South West (Regional) Examinations Board
Southern Regional Exams Board
Welsh Joint Education Committee (WJEC)
West Midlands Regional Examination Board
The West Yorkshire and Lindsey Regional Examinations Board
Yorkshire and Humberside Regional Examinations Board
In 1979, the neighbouring Metropolitan and Middlesex boards merged to form the London Regional Examinations Board.[11] The West Yorkshire and Lindsey and Yorkshire and Humberside Boards also merged to form the Yorkshire Regional Examinations Board in 1982.[5]
GCSE
To create a more egalitarian system, the O Levels and CSE (but not the A Level) were replaced by the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) in 1986.[10] As O Levels and CSEs had used different exam boards (except in Wales and Northern Ireland), new 'examining groups' were created. In England, the four examining groups were consortia of regional GCE and CSE exam boards, while in Wales and Northern Ireland they were the existing boards, making six boards in total:[8]
London and East Anglian Examining Group (formed by the University of London School Examinations Board, the London Regional Examination Board and the East Anglian Examinations Board)
Midland Examining Group (MEG, formed by the Southern Universities' Joint Board, the Oxford and Cambridge Schools Examination Board, East Midland Regional Examinations Board and the West Midlands Examinations Board)
Northern Examining Association (NEA, formed by the Joint Matriculation Board, the Associated Lancashire Schools Examining Board, the Northern Regional Examinations Board, the North West Regional Examinations Board and the Yorkshire Regional Examinations Board)
Northern Ireland Schools Examination Council
Southern Examining Group (SEG, formed by the Associated Examining Board, the University of Oxford Delegacy of Local Examinations, the South East Regional Examinations Board, South West (Regional) Examinations Board and Southern Regional Exams Board)
Welsh Joint Education Committee (WJEC)
As CSEs were no longer offered, the CSE boards effectively ceased to operate as independent boards and instead became part of their larger examining groups (some were even taken over by larger members of their groups, such as the South East Regional Examinations Board, which was acquired by the Oxford Delegacy of Local Examinations in 1985[1]). The GCE boards, however, retained a degree of autonomy, as they still offered A Levels independently.
Though the boards were regional, schools were entirely free to pick which board they did their GCSE qualifications with and could mix and match between subjects.[13]
When the Certificate of Achievement (now the Entry Level Certificate, a qualification below GCSE level) was introduced, the GCSE examining groups were responsible for administering the qualification.
Creation of the current boards
It was not long before the GCE (A Level) boards and GCSE examining groups began to formally merge or enter into even closer working relationships. This made sense, as the it allowed merged boards to offer both GCSE and A Level qualifications and the boards were working together to offer the GCSE qualifications anyway. Many boards also took the opportunity to merge with vocational exam boards, as vocational qualifications became more common in schools. The government encouraged this, as they wanted to simplify the system by having fewer exam boards.[14]