Dr Mike Cresswell - AQA

ePolitix.com speaks to Dr Mike Cresswell, director general of the AQA, in the run up to this year's exam results season

Question: Following the problems with the delays to marking SATs exams this summer, do you anticipate any problems with GCSE and A-level results?

Dr. Mike Cresswell: No, not at all. In fact, with over 12 million marks to process this summer, all our marking is virtually complete. There are several small issues still left to clarify but, essentially, it is all already done so we do not anticipate any problems.

Question: Why are some universities requiring entrance exams to select students? Is this not an indication that A-levels are no longer up to the job?

Dr. Mike Cresswell: No, it's not. We have known for some time that some universities need to make finer distinctions between the very best students - that is an issue that arises with educational success. Our young people have performed better and better in recent years and, obviously, the number of people getting a grade A has grown.

If you are a very selective university with a course which is very over-subscribed, then you need to begin to select the very best students among those who have achieved a grade A. For a long time, we in AQA have been arguing that an A* grade will provide a solution for that and it is being introduced now.

The young people who start their A-levels this September will be the first group who will be able to get an A* grade if they do well enough and start university in 2010. I think that this will definitely be the solution for the selection problem which we have because our young people are doing so well these days.

It is also unlikely that universities will have to introduce their own entrance exams as the A* grade will give them the opportunity to distinguish between the very good and the best students.

Question: How important is the support of the AQA to schools, colleges and professional employers during the ongoing education reform, particularly, the introduction of new qualifications such as the Diploma?

Dr. Mike Cresswell: This support is completely crucial. In fact, it has always been crucial. That is why we have well over a thousand meetings for teachers every year. That is also why all our new courses – this will be true about our Diploma courses as well – are accompanied by specially written text books, teachers' guides, and electronic learning material.

It is absolutely true that there is a lot of change at the moment. There is a lot that everybody in the system must deal with. The Diplomas certainly bring new challenges to schools and colleges.

The government is providing a lot of general support for Diplomas. We are working with our partner City & Guilds on the Diploma and will be offering support closely related to teaching and learning our particular Diploma courses.

I think that support will be of extraordinary importance for the success of the Diplomas.

Question: New Diploma qualifications and the new AQA Bacc are being introduced alongside existing qualifications from this new school year. Are students now faced with too much choice?

Dr. Mike Cresswell: No, I do not think so. In the field of general qualifications, such as GCSEs, A-levels etc – the field in which the AQA works – there really is no evidence of too much choice.

I think it is good that there will be an alternative to A-levels, which is exactly what the Diploma at Level 3 represents. It is good for those young people who prefer to learn in a vocational context.

The AQA Bacc is not an alternative to A-levels: A-levels are at the heart of the AQA Bacc but it builds on A-levels so that pupils can achieve formal recognition for their broader skills, wider learning, personal development, and their contribution to their community or school.

So, there are both new alternatives to A-levels and new qualifications that build on A-levels but I do not think that there is too much choice – rather, there is now a broader choice of qualifications which is likely to meet the needs of more young people – certainly, as far as general qualifications are concerned.

Question: Considering the government's drive for accessible higher education and, more recently, for apprenticeships, how important is flexibility in terms of exam qualifications and secondary education provision?

Dr. Mike Cresswell: I think it is really important. After all, we all know from our own experience – and it is also a well-established research finding – people learn best when they are interested in what they are learning, when they are motivated by it, and when it is presented to them in a way, which appeals to their particular style of learning and thinking.

People are motivated in different ways. That is the insight, which underpins the drive towards personalised learning. We should provide learning which engages everyone as an individual. That means you have to have choice and flexibility. This is something, which the government recently recognised in its qualifications strategy, and it is something that AQA is very much in favour of.

I also think that the obsession with parity of esteem between vocational and academic qualifications misses the point. The point should be providing qualifications which are fit for purpose. That means qualifications that provide engaging and good learning opportunities for the young people who study for them and qualifications which are valued by the gate-keepers in higher education and in the job market so that they open the doors that the young people taking them need.

Question: The National Challenge Programme was introduced by government earlier this year to try and bring schools not meeting exam result targets up to standard, what can be done in your opinion to improve the exam performance of underachieving pupils?

Dr. Mike Cresswell: I would like to have a magic bullet but I do not – there are no magic bullets in this. The essence is about good courses and good teaching and that is what it will always come down to. For example, we contribute to developing good courses by offering the widest range of GCSEs and A-levels out of all the existing examination boards.

We work hard to make sure that the courses we offer are relevant to the 21st century and we strongly support the Diplomas exactly for this reason and we are launching the AQA Bacc. Providing engaging and demanding courses – that is our primary contribution.

But there is also our commitment to helping teachers to teach our courses. Again, we do more of that than any other examination board. This summer we will be introducing a new online results service so that teachers can see in detail where their pupils' strengths and weaknesses lie and use that in planning their teaching in the future.

So we are doing everything we can to support those two objectives of providing engaging, high quality courses and facilitating high quality teaching.

Question: What can be done to ensure pupils continue to develop skills in science and language subject areas, in particular, to ensure the UK remains competitive in a globalised world?

Dr. Mike Cresswell: As far as science is concerned, I think that it is important to note that the new GCSE science exams are designed to locate the science in the context of the real world. We will be issuing the results for these for the first time this summer. It is demanding science but it is delivered by considering the real issues such as epidemics and vaccination, climate change and other key areas.

This is a way of making it much clearer – much clearer than was the case in the past - that the skills you learn as a scientist are the skills that are really relevant to dealing with some of the issues that young people are most concerned about.

I think that this approach helps in science. I also think that the new science Diploma, which will be launched in a few years time, will adopt an approach mostly based on skills. AQA is very excited about it and it will make a valuable contribution to science learning.

As far as languages are concerned, these, of course, are no longer compulsory at Key Stage 4 in the national curriculum so language learning is an interesting issue. This is why we have introduced a new certificate, the FCSE or Foundation Certificate in Secondary Education, to provide motivation and qualifications for pupils choosing not to study languages to GCSE level.

The FCSE is available in all the usual modern foreign languages; French, German, Spanish etc, and from September, we will be offering a GCSE in Mandarin Chinese as well.

These are the ways in which we are contributing to making sure that schools can continue to develop their students’ skills in the key areas of science and languages.

Question: Do you have any final comments for the ePolitx.com readership?

Dr. Mike Cresswell: During the last few weeks the press has been discussing the possibility of addressing some issues to do with university entrance by issuing A-level results a week early.

This interview gives me the opportunity to make my proposal clear. While a full post-qualifications admissions system might be the ideal, in the reasonably short-term it would be quite feasible for the awarding bodies to issue A-level results a week earlier than they do presently... as long as universities were prepared to hold their books open for a week beyond the current results issue date, this would give us a fortnight to resolve the issues for those few young people who have not got the grades they expected.  If it turned out that a pupil's grade needed amending, they would still be able to get into the university of their choice.

Very few people would find themselves in such a situation because very few grades change when they are queried but those who do are now at a disadvantage because while we are reviewing their case, some universities close their offers.

My proposal would address this small but very important problem. It would, of course, need everyone involved in the system to make it work – for example, schools would have to deal with results a week earlier than at present – but it would be a significant improvement for the young people who are, after all, what the exam system is all about.