Has the exam awarding sector just had its Ratner moment?

Why do business people deride their products, troll the tireless professionals who create them, and sneer at the people who buy them?

Gerald Ratner, owner of the Ratners UK high-street jewellery retail empire of 2,500 shops, told an off-colour joke when addressing an Institute of Directors conference at London’s Royal Albert Hall in 1991.

“Ratners doesn’t represent prosperity and has very little to do with quality. We sell cut-glass sherry decanters with six glasses on a silver-plated tray for £4.95. People say, 'How can you sell for such a low price?'. I say, 'Because it's total crap.”

Customers and investors heard they were being taken for fools. The share price tanked by 80%, half a billion pounds (in 1991 money) lost in one day.

Stakeholders take rapid action when they hear a CEO publicly undermine its business

It’s a surprisingly common phenomenon. Helen Mirren, L’Oreal brand ambassador, deriding its products. Lululemon’s founder, Chip Wilson, body shaming its customers. And of course, Michael O’Leary of Ryanair.

I was stunned to hear an example at the #FABFutures event at Birmingham this week: exam owners and skills professionals discussing the future direction of awarding, assessment, and skills policy.

FAB Futures 2025

I noted this from a speaker:‘The world isn’t looking to the UK any more for skills and qualifications. They look to Singapore, Kenya, and others. Ofqual’s brand is declining. It has fallen in the eyes of many.’

This was a CEO of an awarding body/ exam owner, with Ofqual-regulated qualifications, and a thriving international business. What just happened? Why be self-destructive?

Why would a CEO of an exam owner try to undermine his sector?

I’ve seen this happen where executives attempt to engineer a ‘financially agreeable’ exit. Or where there is insufficient governance, poor advice, or the (public) business is being run as a personal fiefdom. Trustees be damned. Maybe just a contrarian? I suspect the CEO was indignant and aggrieved at losing a deal, and needed another person to yell at in helpless frustration.

So what of these claims? England’s exam regulator does a fair job on limited resources. A £24M wage bill carrying 348 people must guide public confidence in exams and assessment. Although it’s not blameless. For example, allowing apprenticeship assessment providers numbers to boom, their ability to provide coverage appears to be thinning. The market simply cannot correct this number of awarding bodies to a sustainable level.

For sure, the regulator isn't blameless, but they can't tell you how to run your business.

It does the sector an immense disservice when senior figures lash out. So, were these remarks a whinger’s platform? A symptom of a deeper awarding sector malaise? Or are qualifications actually becoming ‘total crap’? I could argue for all three theories. A follow-on speaker begged for delegates not to undermine qualifications, and that public confidence must be unaffected.

A whinger? A deeper problem? Are qualifications 'doing a Ratner?

Trustees should be more scrutinising of their senior management’s public remarks. Sector governance is very much a live issue, and shouldn’t be ignored. Although I suspect it will. An old man (who else?) who shouts, but doesn’t actually do anything to change the sector, lives the cliché of, "It's cheaper to act tough, rather than actually fight a war".

And rarely, if ever, mentions the learners.