NEW exams taken by 16-year-olds in the UK reveal thousands of them are struggling to grasp basic English, including grammar and punctuation, the Daily Telegraph has reported.
From 2010, all British pupils will take a "functional skills" paper as part of English GCSE (General Certificate of Secondary Education). Functional skills are practical ones that allow individuals to deal confidently, effectively and independently with life. The test is designed to show that school-leavers are competent in the basic literacy. However, in trials of the exam carried out three times last year, it was discovered that lots of young people failed.
Documents showed that only 66 percent of participants passed the first English test, which was run by the exam board Oxford Cambridge and RSA Examinations (OCR) in January 2008. This dipped to 41 percent in a test in March, and then rose slightly in June to 57 percent. The results suggest students are failing to learn key concepts such as spelling and commas in English, which should have been mastered in primary school.
The functional skills pilot program, involving 12 awarding bodies and over 1,000 centers, commenced in September 2007. The program will run for three years until September 2010. During the pilot, functional skills will be a separate qualification taken alongside the other existing GCSEs. Unless students pass the functional skills papers, they will not be able to gain a grade C or above when the revised GCSE qualifications are introduced in September 2010.
In traditional GCSEs last year, 63 percent of candidates achieved at least a C grade in English.
Critics said the results provided a more accurate picture of the level of standards of teenagers in the UK because — unlike in existing GCSEs — they had not been "coached" to pass beforehand.
Jim Knight, the UK Minister of State for Schools and Learners, said, "It’s normal for exam results to be erratic for pilot qualifications, and this was the first set of results from the first set of functional skills pilots. We expect these results to settle as teachers and students get used to the new use of their skills."
