British Educators Fail Their Students

Because someone somewhere in Government tried to cook the books, a hundred thousand British students may have been cheated out of their next steps to a career.

Over here, most 18-year-old kids take final exams in their best subjects during the last few weeks before they leave school. How well they do in those exams dictates whether or not they go to a good college, or even whether they go to college at all. You can imagine it's all pretty stressful for the kids and their families -- especially the weeks during the summer while they're waiting for the results.

But the lightning struck a few days ago when an announcement was made from our Department of Education that those exam results would have to be rechecked and, if necessary, new grades would have to be given. It's getting more and more difficult to find out who did what to cause this fiasco. But what is clear is that someone, somewhere in some department of Government took the deliberate decision to reduce some of the grades. And we now know the reason why this decision was taken -- and it beggars belief. Someone was concerned that too many kids were doing well in their exam results. He or she was frightened that the authorities would be accused of making the exams too easy.

So, the problem was solved by cooking the books - the Enron-isation of education. Their grades were simply reclassified. And it wasn't even subtle. Some students in line for an A grade were given an E. Up to a hundred thousand British kids have been robbed of the grades to go to the college of their dreams; right now, some have already enrolled in their second or third choice colleges, while others are sitting at home with nowhere to go -- all because of a Government official's desperate need to save face. They'll have to wait until the fifteenth of October to find out just how wrong their exam results are. So more hell for them and their parents at one of the most vulnerable times of their lives.

It's a scandal -- and it stinks.