The government has finally grown sick of claims that gcses and A-levels are being dumbed down, it seems. In his speech to the Labour Party conference on September 26th, Ed Balls, the schools secretary, said he would create a new watchdog to oversee exams. The current regulator is to be broken in two, with one bit continuing to develop new syllabuses and qualifications and reporting to ministers. The other bit, independent of government and reporting directly to Parliament, is to guard against grade inflation.
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