Associated Examining Board

The AEB was formed in 1953[1] to offer GCE (O Level and A Level) qualifications. It was founded by City & Guilds, making it the only exam board based in England not linked to a university.[2]

By the 1970s, the UK's Department for Education and Science became increasingly committed to replacing GCE O Level and CSE exams with a single exam (later named the GCSE), which it wished to be administered by regional consortia of existing O Level and CSE exam boards. Therefore, AEB joined with other the three CSE examination boards in southern England – the South-East Regional Examinations Board, the Southern Regional Examinations Board and the South Western Examinations Board – to form a joint working group in 1978.[3] The University of Oxford Delegacy of Local Examinations joined the group in 1981.

Despite the plans for GCSE, the AEB (and the Oxford Delegacy) would continue to offer A Levels independently. The three CSE boards, however, would now only offer qualifications as part of the group. Therefore, the CSE boards pursued merging with the GCE boards.[3] Consequently, the South East and South Western boards merged with the AEB in 1985 and 1987 respectively[1] (meanwhile, the Southern Board merged with the Oxford Delegacy in 1985 to form the Oxford School Examinations Board).[3] This left the Associated Examining Board and the Oxford School Examinations Board as the only members of their local GCSE group, which they formally launched as the Southern Examining Group in 1987 in time for the first GCSE exams in 1988.[1]

In 1994, the University of Oxford decided to exit the schools examinations market and sold its share of the Southern Examining Group to the AEB (its A Level interests transferred to the University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate).[3] Thus, the Associated Examining Board now controlled the Southern Examining Group entirely. The AEB retained the SEG's identity, meaning GCSEs continued to be offered under the SEG brand and A Levels under the AEB name.[1] Though legally the AEB owned the SEG, both names were used equally, with the organisation often referred to as the Associated Examining Board and Southern Examining Group (AEB/SEG).

In 1997,[1] AEB/SEG entered into an alliance with two other exam boards, NEAB and City & Guilds, known as the Assessment and Qualifications Alliance (AQA).[1] The 1998 examination certificates featured just the AQA name. By 1999, examination papers were dual-branded with both the AQA and AEB or SEG names. In 2000, AEB/SEG and NEAB (but not City & Guilds) formally merged under the name AQA and the AEB and SEG names disappeared entirely.[1] As AEB/SEG and NEAB overlapped in the qualifications they offered, AQA retained two specifications for many subjects, with schools able to choose between the two.