The reputation of A levels has been dealt a blow after the head of an exam board expressed doubts about their value. Simon Lebus, group chief executive of the Cambridge Assessment board, part of Cambridge University, said that examiners, regulators and politicians had all been wrong in failing to address declining public confidence in “A-level currency”.

Mr Lebus said that it was “hard not to be troubled” by research showing a decline in standards in A-level maths and science. “There is no doubt that confidence in the value of the A-level currency has suffered over recent years,” he said.

In a lecture to the exams regulator, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA), he said: “We all, the QCA, the awarding bodies, politicians and the Department for Children, Schools and Families, in its various guises, have been remiss in not being readier to debate the impact of changes in A level, perhaps not least because operating within a culture where there has been an expectation of consistently improving levels of attainment, we may not have felt a need to do so.”

The A-level pass rate has risen for 25 successive years, reaching 96.9 per cent this year, with nearly one in ten candidates achieving three A grades.

The Government and examination boards have emphasised that improvements to A-level standards are the result of better teaching and learning, even though opinion polls have shown that nearly half the public believe that A levels have become easier. Defenders of A levels also point out that the examination has in effect changed from a university entrance examination to a school-leaving certificate for 18-year-olds.

But Mr Lebus said that the education establishment should no longer simply “take refuge” in the technical arguments. He cited research from Dr Robert Coe, of Durham University, showing that A-level results for pupils of the same ability improved by two grades between 1988 and 2006.

He also referred to Sir Peter Williams, appointed in July to review the teaching of maths in primary schools, who has said that the A-level “gold standard” had been declining for a “long period of time”.

Mr Lebus was speaking as the Government embarks on a consultation over plans to hand full independence to the part of the QCA responsible for regulating exams and monitoring standards. In September Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, suggested that this would reassure parents, pupils, universities and employers that exam standards were being maintained.

To counter complaints about A-level grade inflation the Government is to introduce an A* grade for the 2010 exams, which will be awarded to students who achieve 90 per cent and above.

Mr Lebus said that it would be possible to monitor standards through a national script archive that would store a representative sample of answers given by A-level students every year.

Degraded?

— This year 25.3 per cent of entries were graded A, up from 24.1 per cent last year

— The A-level pass rate in 1990 was 77 per cent, compared with 96.9 this year

— Girls outperform boys in every major subject except for modern foreign languages and further maths

— A study carried out at Durham University this year suggested a decline in the standard of maths A levels. Researchers said that pupils of the same ability achieved two grades higher in their A levels in 2006 than in 1988

Sources: AQA, BBC

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