Edexcel Int’l bids adieu, 74 schools affected

Edexcel International the London examination board has stopped offering its accreditation to 74 schools.

Edexcel International the London examination board has stopped offering its accreditation to 74 affiliated private sector institutions in Pakistan.  Edexcel has given no explanation for its decision and has asked the affiliated institutions to associate themselves to another examination board system.

Speaking on condition of anonymity a centre head at one of the affiliated institutions told The Express Tribune that Edexcel had offered the General Certificate Examination (GCE) in Pakistan for the past two decades. She said that the country had lost one of the best and most reliable examination systems.

International School of Choueifat’s registrar Bhakhtavar Shafiq confirmed that Edexcel officials have informed affiliated schools that the exam conducted in June 2010 was the last one.  Shafiq’s school was affiliated with Edexcel and now has attached to the Cambridge International Examination (CIE) board. Shafiq declined comment on Edexcel’s quality saying that she had no mandate to speak about this.

According to the British Council website, out of the 74 schools affiliated with Edexcel International, 16 were in Islamabad, one in Faisalabad, six in Multan, 10 in Karachi, 36 in Lahore and five were located in Peshawar.

Mrs Tabassum, an Edexcel centre head at a branch of the Lahore Grammar School, said that she was shocked when she heard the news.

Edexcel, she said was one of the best examination and grading systems in the world. She said that Edexcel offered the GCE which had been attracting less students every year.

Mrs Tabassum offered two explanations for this.  First, she said, Edexcel did not have competent, active representation in Pakistan. The person assigned by Edexcel in Pakistan, she added, often did not respond to emails of many of the schools. Rival board systems, she said, have very efficient representation. The second reason Mrs Tabussum gave for Edexcel’s waning popularity was that the system hardly ever awarded an A+, A or A* in the GCE while CIE grants those grades more generously. She said that parents harangued school administrations to grant their children A’s. Mrs Tabassum said that in the Edexcel system, teachers had to monitor students’ progress in certain subjects and could award grades on their own.

She said that teachers found the preparation for those subjects, and the grading, cumbersome. She said that in the CIE system, many teachers prepared their lectures from a ‘ready made’ source.

Mrs Tabassum, however, did say that the Edexcel system promoted creativity in students.  She added that the fee structure of some subjects like Islamic Studies, Pakistan Affairs and Urdu was higher in the Edexcel system.

Former Edexcel representative Sohail Zafar and British Council spokesman Salam were not available for their comments.

According to the British Council, Edexcel is the UK’s largest examination body to offer a range of both general and specialist qualifications, for UK and international markets in 105 countries. Edexcel works closely with subject scholars and industry professionals to prepare candidates to succeed in the workplace.

In Pakistan, Edexcel GCEs were held in January and May or June of every year through the British Council.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 18^th, 2010.