9.1 The standard of a qualification is the level of knowledge, understanding, skills and/or competence that someone would be required to demonstrate in order to obtain the qualification. Everyone who shows the same level of attainment should receive the same result. We will need to make certain that the level of attainment for a qualification remains consistent, including, where appropriate, the level of attainment for a particular grade. Standards of comparable qualifications should be consistent both across awarding organisations and from year to year.
9.2 Learners’ interests and public confidence in regulated qualifications will be strengthened if we can demonstrate that standards of comparable qualifications are consistent. We will need to promote public understanding of some difficult and sometimes technical concepts. Where appropriate we will challenge misunderstandings or misinformation about qualification standards. Where problems with qualifications standards are found we will report on these. In the short-term this might have a negative impact on public confidence, but our ability to uncover and address, and our willingness to report on, concerns about standards should enhance our credibility as a regulator and the public’s confidence in qualification standards in the longer term.
9.3 We must regulate so that we can be confident all recognised awarding organisations are maintaining standards in a consistent way, and we must intervene if there is evidence that this is not the case. We will use the accreditation requirement where this will help secure standards, particularly when qualifications are changed.
9.4 We will publish general conditions which awarding organisations must follow, when these are necessary to protect the comparability and consistency of standards in particular qualifications. We will monitor compliance with these conditions and, where necessary, we will take enforcement action. That could include directing an awarding organisation to follow a particular approach to maintaining standards. We will also monitor qualifications and undertake studies to help us evaluate the extent to which the assessments associated with qualifications are valid, reliable, comparable and manageable and have minimal bias.
9.5 The type of activity we might undertake will vary between the types of qualifications, but typically might include checking that examiners and assessors are trained to apply mark schemes consistently; checking that those who are marking work are properly prepared and their approach standardised, and reviewing data from awarding organisations.
9.6 Our approach to the maintenance of standards will vary according to the qualification under review. With general qualifications, that is non-vocational qualifications generally taken by learners between the ages of 14–19 years, we will consider both statistical information relating to the candidature across years and the quality of work produced in each assessment series to inform our judgements.
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