The Certificate of Secondary Education (CSE) was a subject-specific qualification family awarded in both academic and vocational fields in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. CSE examinations were held in the years 1965 to 1987. This qualification should not be confused with the

Indian Certificate of Secondary Education The Indian Certificate of Secondary Education (ICSE) is an academic qualification awarded by the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations, a private, non-governmental board of education in India. The CISCE conducts these examinati ...

which is a school-leaving qualification in India. Also, in some African and former British colonial countries (such as, Kenya) there is a qualification named the Certificate of Secondary Education based on the original and former British variant. Also, the CSE should not be confused with the African qualification CSEE (Certificate of Secondary Education Examination).

CSE

The 1960 Beloe Report was commissioned to look into a new exam which became the CSE. The CSE was introduced to provide a set of qualifications available to a broader range of schoolchildren and distinct from the GCE ( O-Levels), that were aimed at the academically more able pupils, mostly those at

grammar In linguistics, grammar is the set of rules for how a natural language is structured, as demonstrated by its speakers or writers. Grammar rules may concern the use of clauses, phrases, and words. The term may also refer to the study of such rul ...

and

independent school A private school or independent school is a school not administered or funded by the government, unlike a State school, public school. Private schools are schools that are not dependent upon national or local government to finance their fina ...

s (rather than

secondary modern school A secondary modern school () is a type of secondary school that existed throughout England, Wales and Northern Ireland from 1944 until the 1970s under the Tripartite System. Secondary modern schools accommodated the majority (70–75%) of pupil ...

s). CSEs were available in both academic and vocational subjects, incorporated controlled assessment in addition to examination, and examination questions were typically offered in a shorter and more structured form than those found on an equivalent O-Level paper. Before the introduction of the CSE, the majority of schoolchildren at

s did not take externally set end of school examinations, and so left school without any nationally recognised qualifications. Though the introduction of the CSE did not, of itself, resolve the issue as the majority still left at the end of the fourth year without sitting an external qualification. By the late 1960s and early 1970s, some counties had introduced their own examinable qualifications for those leaving at the end of the fourth year. For example, the county of Monmouthshire in Wales awarded the Monmouthshire Certificate in Education. The majority of secondary modern pupils continued to leave without qualifications until the raising of the school leaving age to 16, in 1973, made a fifth year of secondary education compulsory. A number of GCE and CSE exam boards experimented with offering a combined O-Level and CSE examination, in the 1970s, for borderline candidates. The papers contained questions limited to areas of the syllabus that were common to both an O-Level and CSE. The range of courses for CSE was wider than that for the O-level and included many vocational subjects, such as car maintenance, which were not available at O-level. As comprehensive schools gradually replaced secondary modern schools, pupils could increasingly take a mixture of CSEs and O-levels until finally the examinations were merged with the new GCSE certification courses. CSEs and O-levels are the predecessor examinations of the

General Certificate of Secondary Education The General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) is an academic qualification in a range of subjects taken in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, having been introduced in September 1986 and its first exams taken in 1988. State schools ...

(GCSE).

Grading

There were five pass grades in its grading system ranging from grades 1 to 5. A CSE grade 1 was equivalent to achieving an O level grade of C or higher, in the same subject, while a 4 was obtainable by someone of average / median ability. Gaining a CSE Grade 1 implied that the student could have followed an O level course in that subject. This often caused frustration for such pupils wishing to progress to A-level, who (due to incompatibilities in the syllabi) would need to take a 1-year O-level conversion course in the Lower Sixth and thus waste a year gaining a qualification they theoretically already held. Though no formal requirements existed, grades 2 to 3 were possibly set to be

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to the two (D and E) lowest O-Level pass grades.

Entrants

The 1978 Waddell Report, when comparing O-Level and CSE entrants stated: "''the O Level examination tending to be aimed at the upper 20 per cent of the full ability range and CSE catering for the next 40 per cent''", is partially supported by the statistics. For subjects where an equivalent O-level paper existed approximately 36% of the pupils entered for either exam, after 1976, sat the O-Level, the remainder (64%) sat the CSE paper. The proportion taking CSE exams increased following the raising of the minimum school leaving age to 16, in 1973, and the subsequent fall in the proportion sitting neither exam e.g.

Exam Boards

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Certificate Of Secondary Education Educational qualifications in England Secondary school qualifications Secondary education in England Secondary education in Wales Secondary education in Northern Ireland Educational qualifications in Wales Educational qualifications in Northern Ireland

CSE

Grading

Entrants

Exam Boards

See also

Notes