Swearing gets you marks – what the f***?

Just saw the following article on the BBC [WARNING: contains uncensored expletives]:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7481715.stm

I’ve pretty much given up on collapsing with laughter every time an example of how benightedly myopic and bizarre the British school exam system has become leaks to the media, but this one really does take the biscuit. I’m not going to go off on another rant, because frankly I have some solid tourism to do this afternoon, but I actually cracked up when I saw this particular bit of the article:

[AQA chief examiner Peter Buckroyd] is quoted as saying the candidate had demonstrated more skills than one “who doesn’t write anything at all”. AQA said this was not in line with its guidelines, which would be clarified. The pupil is reported to have written “f*** off”, and would have had another mark for adding an exclamation point. Mr Buckroyd is quoted by the Times as saying: “It would be wicked to give it a zero because it does show some very basic skills we are looking for – like conveying some meaning and some spelling.”

Unbelievable – on the one hand we have ASBO’s, complaints about falling exam standards and that odd little thing called ‘etiquette’; on the other, we actually reward children for making a mockery out of the examinations that form the gateway to successful future careers. While I can appreciate that the current GCSE syllabus is about as intellectually stimulating as Big Brother and a possibly even less constructive way to pass the time, is this really the attitude we should be cultivating in this and future generations of school kids? It’s bad enough that ‘being brainy’ is actively despised and discouraged until the age of about 15 – but how is institutionalising this going to help matters in the slightest?

~ by Marius Ostrowski on June 30, 2008.