A writers’ union this week called on examination boards to stop endorsing GCSE and A-level textbooks, claiming that the “immoral” practice is damaging education.
Boards are profiting by selling endorsement rights to publishers, who then produce books which are so closely geared to test preparation that they are little more than crib-sheets, the writers say.
And it is feared the rise of “all you need to know” endorsed books, promising to help staff to tailor their teaching exactly to the requirements of particular tests, is killing young people’s enthusiasm for learning.
The warnings come from the Society of Authors, which has 750 educational writers among its members.
Philip Pullman, author of the acclaimed His Dark Materials trilogy and a former chair of the society, said he was concerned that teachers using such textbooks exclusively were simply “teaching to the test”.
He said: “If you are teaching with the only aim in mind of getting your kids through the test, you are going to narrow, make shallow, make superficial all the things you are teaching them.”
Links between exam boards and publishers have been strengthening in recent years and publishers are increasingly marketing textbooks on the basis of how closely they match exam syllabuses.
[© The Times Educational Supplement, 02/06/06]
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