Teaching body calls for ban on exams for under 16s

LONDON, June 10 (Reuters) National exams should be abolished for children under 16 because they cause excessive stress, an influential education watchdog has concluded, The Observer reported today.

The General Teaching Council (GTC) for England has urged ''a fundamental and urgent review of the testing regime'' in a report submitted to the House of Commons education select committee, the newspaper said.

The report puts the body on collision course with the government's policy of testing all children in England from the age of seven, but it will be welcomed by teaching unions.

The GTC said teachers are being forced to focus resources on how to pass tests instead of concentrating on a broader education for pupils.

''The GTC continues to be convinced that the existing assessment regime needs to be changed,'' the report said, according to the newspaper.

But a spokesman for the Department of Education said the government's policy was fixed.

''We are firmly committed to national testing and performance tables,'' he said. ''These accountability measures are essential to maintaining and extending the improvement in standards we have already achieved.'' The government is piloting a scheme where pupils take tests when they are ready for them, as part of plans to give individual tuition to children falling behind academically.

Keith Bartley, chief executive of the GTC, said there was no need to have one day each year when the nation's 11-year-olds were in a state of panic''.

''To prepare young people for the world they need a set of skills that are far broader,'' Bartley told The Observer.

The GTC suggested standards could be checked by monitoring a sample of pupils, echoing a similar proposal earlier this year from Ken Boston, head of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority exams watchdog.

Last year the Institute of Public Policy Research think-tank also called for compulsory tests at 11 and 14 to be abolished and replaced by teacher assessment.

Currently, every child in England is tested at the ages of seven, 11 and 14 in what are known as standard assessment tests (Sats). Sats results then feed into school league tables.

The tests and league tables have been abandoned in Wales.

REUTERS SLD BST1608