Blog
Parental incentives to achieve GCSE exam results
23rd August 2013
Following Thursday's GCSE results day and The Independent's story on parents spending £4.2m on "encouraging" their children to do well at exams, this intrigued me. Why is it that parents feel the need to interfere in this market to that extent a third offered cash for A* grades earning pupils, at an average of £35.37p per subject and for a C grade, £17.34 (figures taken from The Independent article). Is the incentive of GCSE's and a path into future education, apprenticeships or the workplace not insufficient enough for pupils to work hard and study for their exams? Are we offering purely short-term incentives to what should be the target of long-term success towards promoting future study and education so that a student can make the most of their natural abilities? And have we as a society considered the potential damage that offering these incentives could leave upon young children?
I can still remember well my GCSE and A-Level results days and friends telling me that they were going to receive X, Y and Z if they achieved this, that and the other in their exams. Having no such luck with regards to parental promises, I was rather shocked. To me it was always made clear that you should simply try your hardest and that whatever grades/certificates you received were your reward, along with the doors that they opened for you. Clearly, the more options you have available to you, the better placed you are to choose the future path of your career/education. It is therefore, to me at least, slightly worrying that only 18% of parents thought that it was wrong to bribe their children to do well in GCSE examinations.
Given that over four-fifths of parents do consider it appropriate to offer pupils some form of reward, the question must be asked are we simply shortening the focus of individual students towards the exams and not actually learning both towards and around the subject proper. There may also be the case of information failure. Parents may chose to offer rewards for A*'s and A's, regardless of the subject, so whilst it could be argued that at GCSE the core subjects of English, Maths and Sciences should be focused upon (along of course with Business Studies, or if you are really lucky Economics(!)), then pupils could see their private benefit of studying hard for the perceived "easier" more minor subjects, yet the social optimum would be for the student to perform to their best at the core subjects, or perhaps the EBacc if you follow the Government's thoughts.
Information failure may even exist to the extent that the parents offer incentives for grades that are simply not achievable for the student in question, forcing more pressure on the pupil who is already under significant pressure from their first serious set of life-changing examinations. Placing upon them the parental expectations which are unrealistic brings its own psychological pressure and can force some pupils to cower at the thought of both examinations and in particular results day as they know that they are almost certain to feel that they have disappointed their parents. This can have obvious damaging affects to a child at a crucial time in their life.
Whilst it can not be doubted that offering incentives to individuals can work in the workplace, it is reliant upon the targets being SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Timely). Measurable and timely are more or less resolved in the instance of GCSE results, but it is the specificness, attainability and how realistic the set targets are which is key for parents to ensure. With the dangers of unintended pressure, promoting short-termism and potential short-cuts and at worse cheating, it could be argued that the incentives provided could do more harm than good, and given that the GCSE examination results have declined on the whole over the last two years (admittedly, there are a plethora of other external forces on this), it might even be questioned as to whether or not these incentives are success en-mass.
Capitalism relies upon individuals seeking to maximise their potential and target that towards trade/commerce and also improving the infrastructure. Going further up the education tree, there are incentives on offer for the very best students at degree level golden hello's should they achieve Firsts to encourage them to not only push themselves, but also to guarantee that they choose to come to work for your company. Therefore, playing devils advocate, perhaps it could be argued that the very best education centres at A Level should offer these incentives nationally to encourage pupils to maximise their potential with governmental support and promotion? Whilst bursaries exist, they are realistically not open to everyone due to geographical, social and other constraints. Therefore, if there is indeed this 'requirement' to provide other incentives, financial or otherwise, for pupils at GCSE level, should it not be the government who intervenes? I shall leave that question open to you, the reader.
For the full Independent article, follow this link