Welsh Journals

6. SOME TRENDS IN WELSH SECONDARY EDUCATION, 1967-1987 Peter Ellis Jones 1987 might prove to be a major turning point in the history of secondary education in Wales. That year marked the end of examinations for the General Certificate of Education (GCE) at Ordinary level and for the Certificate of Secondary Education (CSE), and it was the year in which the second great Education Reform Bill of this century, the Baker Bill, commenced its progress through Parliament. From 1988, when courses based on the new General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) are examined for the first time, a new base line for individual performance will be established which will make it difficult to compare future examination results with those that have gone before. Also, the national curriculum, enshrined in the Education Reform Act 1988, lays emphasis on a narrower range of compulsory core and foundation subjects; this will inevitably have far reaching curricular implications for schools and for examinations at 16+. This is an appropriate time, therefore, to review some recent trends in Welsh secondary education. Among the indispensable sources of data for such a review are the annual statistical reports of the Welsh Joint Education Committee (WJEC) on its GCE and CSE summer examinations (WJEC, 1967 to 1987).1 The WJEC, like its predecessor before 1951, the Central Welsh Board, has over the years assumed the role of a national institution; it provides a forum for educational debate within Wales and it is entrusted with the devising of subject syllabuses and the conducting of public examinations based upon them. Schools in Wales have displayed a constant loyalty to the Board and since its examinations are the culmination of the period of full-time schooling for the majority of our children, it might be confidently asserted that the curricula of our secondary schools are in large measure geared to the syllabuses and examinations of the Board. The annual Reports of