Leave the kids alone

Jessica Noon

"Exams are getting easier". This ideological statement has become the cliché story of the British summer, along with the bad weather and rising oil prices.

We Brits love to have a good moan and who better to target than our younger generation? Let's face it they are an easy enough scapegoat. According to some media they seem to divvy their time between boozy benders, stalking our middle class neighbourhoods in their wretched "hoodies" and sitting easy exams which lack rigour and relevance.

The fact that A level results have gone up for the 21^st year in a row, and that more people are obtaining A grades than ever before, is an amazing achievement for all the young people sitting these exams. However, there seems to be a profound culture of pessimism which exists in our society and rather than celebrate educational achievement we would much rather spend our time engaged in meaningless hearsay.

There is no evidence to suggest that exams are getting easier - in fact recent Ofsted reports have demonstrated that the standards of teaching are getting increasingly better. This could be one of the logical explanations as to why students are performing so well in their examinations. It is not surprising that teachers are working consistently harder when it comes to exam preparation, being under the relentless scrutiny of local league tables.

Like a lot of young people, I feel frustrated that every year the focus of A level day is not solely on the achievement of pupils and teachers. For instance former chief inspector of schools, Chris Woodhead, told the Today programme on Radio Four how he believed A levels no longer fulfil their function of identifying the most gifted students for the top universities. He believes there is a strong case for including more difficult questions in the exams because the fact that more people are achieving A grades is a clear indication that the exams no longer challenge or stretch the best students.

I would argue that the inclusion of personal statements and work experience sections in university admission forms clearly differentiates between the most desirable candidates. There are other ways to measure educational ability that don't just include an exam paper.

Furthermore, many of the arguments regarding "easy exams" fail to take into account the rich variety of information which is available for students to access in this digital age. The internet is a magnificent educational tool which allows students to research their subject in immense detail. Also, students are now able to resist modules throughout their first and second years of A Levels which is an obvious advantage for industrious pupils who do not receive their initial desired results.

Young people today are under constant pressure to achieve exceptionally high standards in examinations because of the over saturated graduate job market and lack of training and vocational courses. It is, therefore, disappointing that the hard work and dedication of some young people is misconstrued and turned into a media spectacle on a yearly basis. But hey, that's what sells papers!

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