I'm not one to praise everything the government had done to education in the last nine years, however, there are some good things that have happened, and the government deserve praise for some things (the new Ofsted regime being one of them).
I was pleased, therefore, to see the government state today that they wanted to cut back and in some cases eliminate coursework from the assessment of subjects.
There are, of course, some excellent reasons for assessing coursework, and I know that it can really encourage students to become independent learners. However, all too often the internet is now used to plagiarise and copy work, and this has brought some coursework assessment in to disrepute and made it extremely difficult for teachers to give proper credit to those students who have worked independently. It is a shame that those students will be the ones to miss out by scrapping coursework, but it is important that assessments are fair.
A return to examinations will be difficult for some students (although I always performed better in exams), and I know a number of people who found examinations extremely stressful and rather daunting, but exams do provide a good life experience which is good preparation for life. All of us face pressurised examinations (teachers too when Ofsted visit) at some point in our lives, and I believe that this will be of benefit to the reliability of tests results and will result in more confidence by employers, colleges and university in the results achieved in schools.
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