GCSEs come “too late” in a child’s school life to judge the quality of education they receive, the Northern Ireland Audit Office (NIAO) has said.
An audit report also found there was little evidence that hundreds of millions of pounds invested in Special Educational Needs (SEN) “is being spent effectively or delivering a high-quality education to those who need it”.
The NIAO said the Department of Education (DE) also had no clear definition of what was meant by “quality of education”.
Education Minister Paul Givan said the report rightly highlighted the importance of having reliable, comprehensive and earlier assessment information to support children’s learning.
What did the report say about GCSEs?
The NIAO report assessed the quality of education in Northern Ireland.
It said GCSE and A-level results were only one way to measure the performance of our education system, but GCSEs were often the first indication of how a pupil was performing in school.
“This is very late in a child’s education journey and is the end of the formal education process for some,” it said.
“It is therefore too late to target support and address underachievement.
“The department is without basic information on pupil, school and system performance.
“Current performance measures do not provide the department with a complete picture of the quality of education being provided.”
In Northern Ireland from, 2030, children are set to sit new national tests in reading, maths and science in primary school and year 10.
There are also big changes to GCSEs and A-levels planned.
The NIAO also found that around 1,900 pupils were omitted by their schools from their overall GCSE exam results.
While pupils can be ruled ineligible to be included in a school’s public GCSE and A-level results for several reasons, including illness, welfare issues or because they have been withdrawn from their school – it is a controversial practice which has been criticised.
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