Parents stand accused today of exploiting examination rules for pupils with learning disabilities, such as dyslexia, to secure extra time for writing their GCSEs and A levels.
Figures published today by the exams regulator show a 43 per cent increase in the number of GCSE and A-level exam papers in which pupils were awarded extra time or given additional help, such as an adult assistant to read out questions to them and write down their answers.
Last year exam boards approved such arrangements for 150,173 GCSE and A-level exams taken in England, up from 104,907 in 2005. A further 92,000 arrangements were agreed by schools, more than double the number in 2005.
Ken Boston, chief executive of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, questioned whether the arrangements might be giving some pupils an unfair advantage.
“We need to monitor the situation closely to ensure that the system remains fair for all learners,” he said.
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A number of experts agreed yesterday that the rules were open to abuse. Tom Burkard, a research fellow at the Centre for Policy Studies and director of the Promethean Trust, a charity for dyslexic children, said that many middle-class parents were exploiting the system to gain an unfair advantage for their children.
“Schools are under great pressure not to give students extra time in exams. When they do, it’s usually the result of pressure from middle-class parents,” he said.
Mr Burkard, author of Inside the Secret Garden: The Progressive Decay of Liberal Education, said that the existing system was unfair to children who were not given extra time or support.
“How can you possibly be fair in saying objectively whether a child should have extra time? It just makes the system into even more of a lottery if middle-class children are getting more time,” he said. While the push for extra time in state schools was coming from parents, in the independent sector the schools were driving it, he suggested, particularly outside London and the South East, where competition for pupils was intense.
Richard Cairns, headmaster of Brighton College, said that it was an open secret in the sector. “There are always rumours of schools that have a much higher proportion of pupils with learning support needs than you would expect from their profile,” he said.
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Another head of a leading independent school said that he knew of a rival school where 29 per cent of GCSE pupils were given extra time or support. “Their kids were just as bright as ours, but we had only 6 per cent,” he said.
Kate Griggs, of Xtraordinary People, a dyslexia charity, said that having extra time to complete an exam could be of critical importance to children with dyslexia, who often take longer to process information that they have read, as well as those with dyspraxia, who may require more time than other pupils to write. She added: “With any system there are always going to be some people who bend the rules.”
Shirley Cramer, of the charity Dyslexia Action, also accepted that the system was open to abuse. She called for procedures to be tightened at the Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ), which represents the exam boards. While schools had to provide the exam boards with documentary evidence that an individual pupil qualified for extra support, there was no external quality assurance system in place for monitoring that evidence, she said.
She added that the sharp increase in pupils getting extra exam support could simply be the result of better identification of conditions such as dyslexia.
Under JCQ rules designed to ensure a level playing field for all exam candidates, schools and colleges can decide to allow students up to 25 per cent extra time 45 minutes more on a three-hour paper to sit an exam.
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If any more extra time is needed it must be approved by the exam board.
Candidates must produce a statement from a qualified psychologist confirming their learning disability.
Students with attention deficit disorder can have an adult “prompter”, whose job is to tap on the desk or on candidates’ arms to remind them to pay attention to the exam.
Extra time can also be granted to blind candidates using Braille or those affected by temporary illness or injury.