John Galston has written a good defence of exams as a means of assessment in education here. I think so far as it goes it is convincing – exams may be dry or cold or narrow but they are rarely accused of being “unfair”, or “underchallenging”.
But that is not the real problem with exam-directed education – that is, education that is designed to conclude in exams which assess the achievement of the student, who then uses those exam results to move on to other activities. Indeed, this is a description of any assessment-based education, but I believe it is most pointed with academic exams. What is the real problem, then, with exams in History or Philosophy?
In essence, the problem is that exams becoming the goal of education – and exam results certainly are the functional goal of virtually every secondary school in this country, and many primary schools – empties formative education of its real purpose. The problem is not that exams fail to achieve what they set out to do – measure achievement – but that they succeed.
I have written recently about a conservative idea of education – I refer you there for more detailed thoughts – but the general point is that education transmits a culture. There is no entity known as Education, which is better or worse achieved – there are educations, and each instils values and hands on a tradition to the next generation. The right formative education for a free people is one in the “liberal arts” – those things which stimulate the mind and body, which broaden horizons, which renders them socially integrated without losing their identity. The alternative education is in the “servile arts” – skills passed on for utility. They train you to serve. These are noble and necessary arts – we need surgeons and plumbers and farmers and data analysts – but they are not the same as the liberal arts.
As assessment-based education aims to give the student a certificate proving competence – ultimately to future employers, via whatever educational route an individual takes – and therefore is a servile education, no matter the content. You only need to listen to defences of Theology or Philosophy degrees as “employable” to see how true this is – as if reflection on the deep things of God and the mind was ultimately really about getting a graduate-entry role at a cyber-security firm or in the Civil Service!
Exams exacerbate this problem dramatically, because they create an “end-point” to the education – one day of battle, a day of real achievement, but an objective quite distinct to the process of learning itself. The person who goes to the gym as physiotherapy for an injury does so for a fundamentally different reason to the person who does out of sheer pleasure in the burn of training. Everything academic that happens in the school year – to return to our subject – is subordinate to and intended as utility for the final exams.
Yes, of course a student can enjoy what they are reading, or be fascinated by a historical period, or enjoy the purity of algebra, all whilst training for an exam. But it is impossible that their chief focus will be on enjoying these things; and it is ridiculous to believe their teacher’s focus is on that a majority of the time. The exams are all. (This can all still be said to a lesser degree for coursework and similar assessments, of course.)
Furthermore, the mass examination system is industrial in scale and in mode; it is in that sense inhuman, and channels education into an inhuman and industrial system. Even a class of 12 children with two teachers – the ratio avoiding an on-the-ground industrialisation – will be coarsened and corrupted by mandatory engagement in the exam industry.
Of course, if we were to abolish exams (and their parallels) tomorrow, we would be left with a void. How should any educational or professional or trades body determine the qualifications of an applicant? Here is my suggestion, in outline: abolish all forms of mandatory school-end assessment; let universities, colleges, professional apprenticeships, trades bodies, etc, introduce flexible entry assessments – perhaps with the help of Government. These can be partially standardised, of course, but this method would render at least four great advantages:
(1) Both the decoupling of schooling from “final assessment” (including exams) and the increased variety of the forms of entry exam on offer would allow academic education to focus on the proper end of academic education - intellectual excellence and a liberal mindset. With curricula no longer serving the end of exams, better generalization and personalization of what is learned is possible – a universal shared common core, with individual interests dictating further learning.
(2) Employers, universities, and so forth will be able to present entry exams or assessments better fitted for their specific purposes, rather than relying on the generalities of three A Level grades, or Maths and English GCSEs. Their institutions will benefit from this change, too.
(3) To the degree the same approach is taken with Universities, with entry exams and perhaps with a general Tripos-style exam at the end, Universities can reclaim their proper position as the finishing school of intellectual excellence. Ironically, I suspect this will render their graduates – fewer of them now, of course, because our proposed system would de-emphasizes University as an end-goal for many people – MORE employable, not less, precisely because we refuse to make that the point of University.
(4) Finally, we could tinker more widely with where children go to school and when. If a child is resolutely unacademic, and has enjoyed whatever they may in their liberal arts education but has no natural aptitude, why should they not move to a more technical education at 14? Why should we not have even more apprenticeships available at 16? We have gutted the Endless Education Industry of its product – exam results – and so are free to actually give our children the education that best fits them.
These are idle thoughts, certain not to be adopted. They would require a great deal of work. But – if only for those of us considering a different course in education for our children – perhaps they may serve as a spur to the true ends of education.
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