MAIL COMMENT: How to restore the integrity of exams

When exam standards slide, it cannot be long before the entire nation begins to suffer. For we all depend ultimately on a rigorously qualified workforce of scientists, engineers, teachers, doctors and administrators, selected according to absolute standards of excellence.

That is why yesterday's warning from the head of Cambridge University's exam board should set alarm bells jangling.

In chilling language, Greg Watson warns the 'politicisation' of GCSEs and A-levels is jeopardising standards and shaking public confidence.

In this, he is echoing countless employers who take on school-leavers, festooned with paper qualifications, only to find they need remedial help with even the most basic literacy and numeracy.

Mr Watson cites just three examples of the way in which the Government has undermined absolute standards by its interference, making comparisons between pupils' abilities impossible.

Over the past decade, he says, ministers have ordered the use of calculators in and out of exams no fewer than seven times. They have introduced coursework into GCSE curricula, only to start withdrawing it again. Now they insist the pass-mark for the new A* grade at A-level should be approved by the Government.

He might have added many more - like the way league tables and Whitehall targets have encouraged schools to enter their pupils only for the easiest exams, set by the most lenient boards.

Leave aside this month's fiasco over SATs. The truth is for 11 years, education has been corrupted by a Government more interested in the appearance of raising standards than the reality.

No wonder good schools are increasingly turning to exams such as the pre-U, free from ministers' control.

Only when we restore full independence to exam boards can we restore meaning and integrity to the qualifications on which our future depends.

Winners and losers

With council taxes soaring well above inflation, you might think local services would have improved over the past few years. Just try asking John Martin.

Aged 85 and suffering from cancer, he was told to drag a wheelie bin more than 100 yards up an unpaved lane when his local council introduced a cost-cutting system for collecting rubbish last month.

All over the country, you'll hear similar stories of basic services being slashed as town halls struggle to save money.

There's one area of spending, however, in which no savings at all are being made.

The Audit Commission says pay packets for senior officials have more than doubled over the past decade - with eight chief executives topping £200,000 a year. That's more than the Prime Minister.

Why? Because councils have been outbidding each other as officials move from one local authority to another.

Isn't that something for pensioners to think about, as they drag their rubbish up the lane?

Killer in our midst

Heavy drinking is killing 15,000 people a year, including a quarter of all deaths among men aged 16 to 24. It is also responsible for 800,000 hospital admissions and costs us £25billion a year in healthcare, crime and lost productivity.

The Government's response? Why, ministers say they must wait for more evidence before making any decisions.

Forget the lunacy of beer being sold cheaper than water. Discount the madness of 24-hour licensing.

The truth is our politicians have neither the will nor the decency to do anything about one of the most depressing - and lethal - problems of our age.