It’s exam results time!

Here’s a warning – it’s the silly season again! That time of year when the media are desperately searching for stories to make the news. Fortunately for them, August brings a spate of examination results beginning today with the Scottish Highers. Later in the month we will see the release of GCSE and A level results. It is almost certain that exam passes will hit an all-time high.

Today’s headlines focused on students receiving their exam results a day early if they requested them to be delivered by text! An embarrassing blunder which brought an apology from the Scottish Qualifications Authority which was at pains to say no-one was advantaged or disadvantaged by the mistake. At least the error shifted the focus from the usual headline when exam results improve – claims that exams are not what they used to be.

This has been a consistent theme for the past decade or so and while there may well be evidence to back up the claims, it is hardly the students’ fault. Yet they must feel miffed that their efforts are routinely devalued by a sceptical media. Imagine handing an Olympic gold medal to an athlete at the same time as pointing out that if it wasn’t for improved training techniques they would probably not have run as fast as an athlete twenty years ago! You might find the medal attached to a tender part of your anatomy.

Why do we have to have this annual rubbishing of students’ academic achievements? Are the exam boards and politicians to blame for drawing attention to it? Is society so cynical that we have to believe that things can’t be as good as they seem? Whatever, the reason, its time to draw breath and let the dust settle on student celebrations before we charge in with accusations of ‘dumbing down’.

As a parent I am in a strong position to compare the scholastic efforts of my children to my own and I can categorically say that they worked harder than I ever did; studied more subjects; had more homework; took more exams from SATS to GCSEs, from AS levels to A levels and then had to compete for places at university with no certainty that even with excellent grades they could get on to the course they desired.

Pressure on today’s students is higher than at any time in the past. Let’s just pull back from our intense regard for standards for the remainder of this month and take the exam results for what they are – a measure of what each individual student has achieved – and celebrate. You never know, we might even feel better for it.

 

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