In defence of standards
Joanna Williams, November 2025
This paper by Joanna Williams discusses what is meant by standards in education, how and why standards have fallen and, crucially, why this matters. In defence of standards also considers the impact of different forms of assessment on educational standards, making the case for traditional exams in establishing high achievement and improving pupil outcomes.
Central to Joanna Williams’ argument is that maintaining high educational standards is a moral question. A moral question that speaks to the capacity of adults to demonstrate a commitment to the next generation and assume responsibility for guiding their entry into the world of knowledge and culture. Furthermore, setting high standards in education tells children that they are worthy of knowing the best that has gone before them and intellectually capable of meeting the challenges to come.
In defence of standards also argues that it is vital for those who are concerned about educational standards to make the case for traditional exams. Exams are regularly criticised as merely testing memorisation and rewarding pupils who can regurgitate facts. This unhelpful caricature has led to increasing calls for GCSEs to be scrapped, with some even calling for the end of A levels. Encouraging pupils to revise what they have been taught, to work on topics they have found challenging and to consolidate their learning is not seen as an important process in its own right. Instead, exams are characterised as, at best, being a waste of time and, at worst, standing in opposition to ‘true’ learning.
Countering this, Joanna Williams argues that exams play a crucial role in directing learning and assessing pupils’ levels of understanding, and are therefore vital to maintaining and improving educational standards. Exams are also an essential accountability mechanism, providing the most equal means of measuring achievement and greatest insight into pupil progress. Moreover, exams speak to the capacity of adults to assert educational standards in relation to both quality and knowledge content, and to pass on to children the aspiration that they will live up to high standards.
Joanna Williams writes in The Spectator: ‘Grade inflation is harming a generation of school children‘.
About the Author
Joanna Williams is an academic and author. She is the author of How Woke Won (2022); Women vs Feminism (2017); Academic Freedom in an Age of Conformity (2016); and Consuming Higher Education: Why Learning Can’t Be Bought (2012). She is a columnist for Spiked and writes regularly for The Times, The Spectator and The Telegraph.
Joanna Williams began her career teaching English in secondary schools. She joined the University of Kent as Lecturer in Higher Education and Academic Practice in 2007, where she later became Director of the Centre for the Study of Higher Education. Since leaving academia in 2019, she has worked for think tanks including Civitas, Policy Exchange and the Centre for Independent Studies.
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