Lack of action to the exam question sham.
NCT is disappointed by the current lack of action from the authorities over the GCSE exam question scandal, but your support could spur them on.
You can email the Secretary of State for Education (Michael Gove MP) and the Minister for Schools (Nick Gibb MP) today and show them that we don’t want our children’s exams exposed to poor information that will lead them to false assumptions.
Following a great amount of interest from you on this important issue, we were hoping for some good news from Ofqual, the regulator of qualifications, examinations and assessments in England. So far, we have only had a holding reply, having raised the issue with them in July.
Your action now could make them step up a gear since your email will be going to the Ministerial team, your own MP and Ofqual themselves will be copied in. This will keep up the pressure on Ofqual to do a thorough investigation into how such poor information got into exams.
Previous NCT investigations found that a GCSE question contains factual inaccuracies and is constructed with a clear bias in favour of formula feeding. It presents erroneous information as fact, and directs students to mistrust charities.
The exam question uses an example of a fictional packet of infant formula milk, called My Baby Food, which is recommended ‘as being the closest to a mother’s own breast milk’ and that it is given free to mothers in the developing world – as without it their babies might die of malnutrition.
If this was a real product, such messages would be illegal. The statement about being given to mothers in the developing world is also misleading since around 1.45 million children die every year through lack of breastfeeding, mainly as a result of unsafe bottle feeding.
Another example of poor information about formula feeding comes from an SAT Science paper, which asks why a comparison between formula, cow and breastmilk is a fair one. The comparison looks at quantities of nutrition in these, but does not provide information about how much of each element a baby needs. Therefore, looking at vitamin and iron content, students would assume that the formula is the ‘best’ option, as it contains more of these. No mention is made of how easily nutrients are absorbed from the various milks either, so someone who doesn’t appreciate that breastmilk is absorbed more readily than formula may be led to believe that these values do indeed provide a fair comparison, when the fact is they do not.
You can help to get a response from Ofqual and from the Government. Take action now by using our NCT Active software and stop inaccurate and misleading information making its way into education.
NCT is disappointed by the current lack of action from the authorities over the GCSE exam question scandal, but your support could spur them on.
You can email the Secretary of State for Education (Michael Gove MP) and the Minister for Schools (Nick Gibb MP) today and show them that we don’t want our children’s exams exposed to poor information that will lead them to false assumptions.
Following a great amount of interest from you on this important issue, we were hoping for some good news from Ofqual, the regulator of qualifications, examinations and assessments in England. So far, we have only had a holding reply, having raised the issue with them in July.
Your action now could make them step up a gear since your email will be going to the Ministerial team, your own MP and Ofqual themselves will be copied in. This will keep up the pressure on Ofqual to do a thorough investigation into how such poor information got into exams.
Previous NCT investigations found that a GCSE question contains factual inaccuracies and is constructed with a clear bias in favour of formula feeding. It presents erroneous information as fact, and directs students to mistrust charities.
The exam question uses an example of a fictional packet of infant formula milk, called My Baby Food, which is recommended ‘as being the closest to a mother’s own breast milk’ and that it is given free to mothers in the developing world – as without it their babies might die of malnutrition.
If this was a real product, such messages would be illegal. The statement about being given to mothers in the developing world is also misleading since around 1.45 million children die every year through lack of breastfeeding, mainly as a result of unsafe bottle feeding.
Another example of poor information about formula feeding comes from an SAT Science paper, which asks why a comparison between formula, cow and breastmilk is a fair one. The comparison looks at quantities of nutrition in these, but does not provide information about how much of each element a baby needs. Therefore, looking at vitamin and iron content, students would assume that the formula is the ‘best’ option, as it contains more of these. No mention is made of how easily nutrients are absorbed from the various milks either, so someone who doesn’t appreciate that breastmilk is absorbed more readily than formula may be led to believe that these values do indeed provide a fair comparison, when the fact is they do not.
You can help to get a response from Ofqual and from the Government. Take action now by using our NCT Active software and stop inaccurate and misleading information making its way into education.
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