The recent move by the Uzbekistan government to block access to the internet – coincidentally on the same day as national university entrance examinations – is rather an extreme example of the ongoing…
Teenagers across England are waiting nervously for their GCSE, AS and A Level results. Now new figures have shown more of them are choosing to take more “academic” subjects, such as the humanities, languages…
Last week a report from the Education Select Committee called new attention to an old problem: white working-class children consistently do especially badly at school. In response to a persistent cycle…
When it comes to US public education, few topics engender such heated debate as a new set of maths and English standards for school children known as the Common Core. Since the final standards were released…
Manu Kapur, National Institute of Education of Singapore
The upcoming ban on the use of calculators in most maths exams for 11-year-olds in UK schools reminds me of a persistent concern in education: when do the tools we use to learn become crutches we can’t…
Sweaty-palmed and reciting facts over and over in their heads, the hordes of university and school students sitting down to exams this month will have precious little time to think about how their exam…
The government has recently announced changes to the content of GCSE and A level history exams in England. As in previous reforms to the history curriculum, the documents set out the proportion of British…
Science evokes images of Bunsen burners, coloured liquids, vapours rising from flasks, white coats and safety goggles. But are we making too much of the rigid assessment of the practical parts of science…
Teachers play a fundamental role in enthusing students about their subjects and helping them prepare effectively for important examinations, such as GCSEs. They can motivate students. But, despite their…
A recent discrimination case has highlighted the difficulty of balancing the rights of disabled medical students with the rights of the community to safe medical and health care. In the BKY v The University…
In September 2013, I wrote for The Conversation about the way reform of A-level exams was being conducted and the worrying implications for subject content and assessment. These concerns were echoed by…
As part of the recent announcement that A Levels and GCSEs in arts subjects in England are to be made more “rigorous and demanding”, the secretary of state for education, Michael Gove, said he was “passionate…
With the creeping rise of exam results over the past few decades, many have questioned whether standards are really as high as they were in the past. More worrying still is whether pupils in the UK can…
The coalition government is to introduce the testing of young children soon after they enter primary school at the age of four or five. English children are already tested far more than children in most…
Writing good science exam questions is hard. Getting the wording right, making sure that what you are asking about is clear, pitching the question at the right level, takes time, lots of experience and…
England’s 164 state grammar schools form a distinctive but controversial part of the nation’s education system. These schools are distinctive in terms of their high levels of performance – one consequence…
Having floated ideas about return to O-level style examinations and an English baccalaureate certificate, education secretary Michael Gove has given in to opposition and stuck with the GCSE. But the reforms…
There is an assumption that children perform better amongst highly achieving peers. High class achievement might be thought to indicate better teaching, or to induce academic competition between students…
The government is undertaking an ambitious programme to reform qualifications in schools, with significant changes being made to GCSEs and A-levels over the next few years. This, in theory, is a positive…