IT is a sad fact of educational life that no external examination

system is proof against mistakes by markers or cheating by candidates

and their teachers. No exam of any kind can guarantee the degree of

reliability, validity, and objectivity the customer requires -- and is

led to expect -- of it.

Few education systems in the world are so much in thrall of external

exams as ours, and few are so overstretched. External exams were devised

about a century ago to counter nepotism, and to select officer material

from the increasingly literate and numerate other ranks.

And that is still their job. But in addition they are currently

struggling with a task few other systems would attempt -- assessing and

certificating all pupils at the statutory leaving age. Government does

not trust teachers, and teachers do not trust each other, to tackle this

chore internally. And so teachers and pupils sit exams together, and

both are under pressure to pass.

It is worth remembering that before O Grade, school leavers were

certificated by education authorities, on the basis of internal

assessment by the school. These certificates survived the introduction

of O Grade, though they were increasingly devalued by the existence of a

national certificate until the raising of the school leaving age -- at

which point O Grade became the school leaving certificate, but was

insufficiently flexible to cover the whole range. As with the O Grade,

so now with the Higher.

The place of the local certificate was taken in some areas by CSE Mode

Three, an English certificate that relied heavily on internal

assessment. This was swept away by Standard Grade and the English GCSE

-- and internal assessment was further eroded as these developed.

There are a lot of people in the educational and political

establishment who dislike internal assessment because, basically, they

do not trust teachers. The people who are reckoned to be the consumers

of these certificates -- employers mainly -- have long been conditioned

to believe that the national, external exam is much more valid than any

local or school-based assessment, however moderated.

Because for all that is said and written on the purposes of exams,

their main job is, and always was, to grade young people like

assembly-line products or agricultural produce. When it comes to exams

and certificates we live in a dependency culture, and no single group in

education bears more responsibility for this than the teaching

profession.

Secondary teachers shy away from the responsibility of certificating

their pupils. Every time they have been offered the option, however

obliquely, they have chosen external exams over internal assessment.

Primary teachers were freed from the pressure of external assessment

around the time secondary teachers welcomed it in the guise of O Grade,

and they still prefer internal assessment to national tests.

Which group displays the more mature professional responsibility? But

secondary teachers trust neither primary teachers' professionalism nor

their motivation. University teachers show a similar professional

respect for their secondary colleagues.

And that means we are stuck with a dependency on external testing and

a system that will become more and more unreliable as it is subjected to

a volume of pressure the Scottish Examination Board was not designed to

withstand.

This year's home economics debacle came about because one key person

was on sick leave at the crucial time. We will have to get used to such

''blips'', and an appeals procedure that can deal only with university

candidates. The teacher-pupil alliance will respond to the external

threat at the very least by coaching.

As it is, the examiners are cheerfully taking on a huge and absurd

amount of cumbersome testing jobs, culminating in a 16-plus leaving

certificate -- Standard Grade -- which for most pupils is not a leaving

certificate at all. And whatever happens to the real leaving certificate

in such a system -- Higher Grade -- you can bet your life it will cost

plenty.

But until we rid ourselves of superstition, or the external exam

system collapses under its own weight, it is only fair that teachers and

pupils should start practising the art of passing these daft tests as

soon as possible.