Defending the integrity of the existing exam system against the algorithms of Ofqual is essential to the lives of many young people.
The exam system has always had quotas and moveable pass rates to fit the numbers required and/or University places available but this wasnt previously done quite so blatantly on the basis of postcode or social class as was attempted in 2020.
Fortunately the ever important politics of protest and survive appears to be winning the day.
At the same time its important to keep in mind that the exam system itself and the way it orders knowledge has long been the source of criticism.
Michael Rosen who has been appropriately forthright in criticising Ofqual has also rightly reminded of the alternative EngLit study plan that appeared in Trevor Pateman’s Counter Course (1972). Rosen used the pseudonum Joe Spriggs who I presume was some kind of well known Arsenal player of yesteryear.
My own take has been over the years to promote what radicals in the 1830s called Really Useful or Spearhead Knowledge. That is education that looks at what really goes on in a market capitalist society, why and what might be done about it. A paper I gave on ths 10 years ago is linked to below:
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