Diary – 15 November 2003

In all the endless talk about school examinations I have never heard this important point made. It is that ever improving school exam results are the nearest thing yet to a panacea for universal happiness. Just notice how many people they please. Pupils, or students as everyone calls them these days, like getting A grades rather than Bs and Cs. Parents like that too. Headmasters and headmistresses can boast, year after year, of record results, and universities of rising entry standards. Governments like them most of all, because better results prove, of course, that standards are rising and that they made them rise. Only two groups grouse about them — top universities (which have to differentiate somehow between candidates with rows of A grades), and those spoil-sports who point out that ever improving grades might not mean that students and teachers are getting cleverer every year, but that standards are getting lower.