Yet further evidence of our education meltdown is provided in a Sunday Telegraph story which says:

‘Examiners marking an English test taken by 600,000 14-year-olds have been told not to deduct marks for incorrect spelling on the main writing paper, worth nearly a third of the overall marks. The rule, issued by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, means that pupils could spell every word wrongly in the most significant piece of writing that they are required to do and yet still receive full marks. Ministers are particularly concerned about exam results this year, having failed to achieve their 2004 target of 75 per cent of 14-year-olds reaching the level expected in English. Just 71 per cent reached the standard, despite a multi-million pound Government strategy aimed at improving lessons in secondary schools.’

So the way the government is addressing the lamentable failure of schools to get pupils to reach a required level of spelling is to give them full marks anyway even if they misspell every word.

Words for the next spelling test: gerrymander, cheat, cynicism, betrayal, cultural suicide.

Posted by melanie at May 15, 2005