Debate in the Welsh Assembly - Welsh Conservatives Debate: GCSE and A-level Results

I move the motion. First of all—and I know you will all join me in this—can I offer my congratulations to all the students, teachers and staff for the commitment and work that they've put into this year's exams? This debate is no criticism of them. It is about holding Welsh Government to account on how they're making—sorry, and how they're making it perhaps a little more difficult for us to do that. Let me congratulate also all those who passed non-A-levels and non-GCSEs too. Time and time again, we stand up in this Chamber and we talk about parity of esteem between academic and vocational qualifications, but the focus is pretty much always on the former. So, let's begin with this as an example of uncertainty dressed up as good news.412

The Welsh Government amendment to our debate abounds with whataboutery, exactly as it did in last year's debate on this subject, but there is one statistic of which it looks like we should be proud, and that's a modest increase in the number of students attaining A* to C in science subjects. Now, Members will recollect that the number of entrants for GCSE sciences is increasing, partly due to the deliberate insistence that some students move from BTEC to GCSE, as the BTEC course limited students to a maximum attainment of a GCSE grade C equivalent. Yet it's not possible to establish how many of those students who would formerly have entered a BTEC course got a C or lower at GCSE, and, conversely, Qualifications Wales tells me that is not possible to break down the figures for those who did take the BTEC this year to see how many of them attained the C equivalent. In short, at this stage, we can't tell whether moving students from one qualification to the other has made any difference to the standard of attainment or, indeed, whether staying on a BTEC course may have been better for particular students. The reason I'm raising this particular smoke and mirrors right at the beginning of this debate is not just to highlight that obfuscation surrounding what looks like, at first instance, good news, but to challenge you, Minister, on your failure to act on the status of qualifications that bring out different strengths in pupils.413

In 2014-15, 19,775 pupils obtained a BTEC qualification. In 2017-18, which is the most recent figure I can find, only 8,425 learners sat BTECs. I want to know what that says about your ministerial confidence in so-called vocational qualifications. There is no point, as you did last week, advising Nick Ramsay that all schools in his area are offering an appropriate number of vocational courses, when your decisions have done nothing to convince parents and pupils that vocational qualifications are valuable. And inflating those non-general exam figures further by including the skills challenge from the bac is something of a sleight of hand, which I think needs pointing out.414

With teachers as well as parents now looking to the GCSE and the A-level as the only gold standard, there is an even greater risk that those who could reach excellence by teaching to different aptitudes will be denied routes to achieving their potential. And, anyway, let's face it: waving apparently shiny science results in our faces doesn't disguise the fact that there was again a fall in the proportion of learners securing A* to C grades in English language, maths and second-language Welsh. You can't be pleased about that, Minister. These are the gateway qualifications to just about any next step into training, work or further and higher education, and it is the very point that I raised in the debate on the motion to annul the School Performance and Absence Targets (Wales) (Amendments) Regulations 2019, back in July. These are the regulations that remove the requirement for school governors to set targets for these subjects and the need to report on the percentage of pupils who achieve these targets in the years pre GCSE. Now, unfortunately, as that piece of secondary legislation was part of a suite of changes, it wouldn't have made sense to pull out that regulation, but you've singularly failed, Minister, to answer the point about the crucial nature of those particular key skills. It's why we've tabled point 4 of the motion.415

The assessment of pupil performance in years 4 to 9 may well be about identifying how to help each pupil improve, and I do understand that, but those scores also act as a warning. Today's year 9 pupils are not in as strong a position as this year's year 11 pupils were in two years ago—not in English, not in Welsh, not in maths, and not even in science. And let's remember that this year's year 11 results in those key skill areas, those key qualifications, are down again on last year's already grim results, the worst in 13 years. And now, as governors are able to avoid setting targets even for these key skills earlier in the pupil's journey, that link between standards and the journey towards exam results is becoming less visible, less transparent and very useful for Governments to hide bad news.416

Now, Members might be wondering about point 2 of our motion and the reference to 2007. It's not just random, I promise you. I've just brought your attention to the drop in attainment in the most important GCSEs again this year. But Welsh Government has countered, in its amendment, with the claim that, overall, results have improved this year, which, actually, they have by about 1 per cent, but, as there was a fall last year of about the same amount, I guess that they're only the second worst in 13 years. 2007 was the last year when the percentage of young people attaining A* to C grades was the same, pretty much, in Wales and England. And, as we can see from the Government's amendment, they love a comparison with England. Now then, since then, pupils in England, since 2007, outperformed those in Wales every single year on A* to C grades at GCSE, although both nations did see improvements.417

In 2015, a drop in the English results meant that both nations were pretty much in the same place, and, since then, both nations have reformed their GCSEs. Both felt the disruption, but guess what? England's performance is stable—actually, rising modestly. In Wales, we have dropped all the way back to our 2007 levels. You cannot get away with saying that these are different exams when England has clearly managed its changes without the damage to attainment. And incidentally, Minister, you're very brave to mention Northern Ireland in your amendment. You know as well as I do that pupils in Northern Ireland put in yet another phenomenal performance in this year at GCSE, with around 80 per cent achieving A* to C, and they've been doing it for years. Why aren't we looking more closely at their system rather than Scotland, where state schools are now offering fewer subjects and where results for Highers have fallen for the fourth year running?

Now, comparing results leads me to the point raised in Plaid's second amendment, and Qualifications Wales has urged the same caution about comparison. Can I invite Members to consider this? All exam boards, regardless of which nation they're teaching to, work hard to ensure that the standards of challenge in their exams, as evidenced by grades, are broadly in line. So, in short, a C in a WJEC exam should be as good as a C from an AQA exam. The difference in content of those exams for quality assurance purposes does not matter as between boards, as long as there is consistency in the level of challenge. And surely that has not changed. The content of our new GCSEs may be very different—they may test different knowledge, they may test different skills—but the standard of challenge should still compare, within margins of error, not just with the standards of other nations, but with the standards of our previous GCSEs. Our poorer GCSE results compared to England and Northern Ireland don't arise from our exams being harder than theirs. So, you cannot hide your failure, Minister, by claiming that you cannot compare what we have today with what has gone before. We should always be able to compare standards year on year, and attainment data is part of that process.

Just briefly, to deal with the other amendments—we will support amendment 3, if we get the chance. Just one caveat on the third point of that Plaid amendment: Welsh Conservatives have always said that we want teachers to be free to teach, and it's why we're not laying into the curriculum at this point, but school leaders will need to know that we will insist on very robust, high-level accountability structures in exchange for trusting them. That is miles away from the current invasive management, but we cannot be completely hands-off. We have a Government to hold to account on its performance, let alone the interests of learners and, indeed, staff to represent.418

We also support the Brexit Party amendment, not because we believe that specific accountability measures should be readopted, but because it talks of a trend. I hope my earlier remarks make clear our concerns about upholding and improving standards in English, Welsh and maths, and, indeed, achievement as between a general and vocational qualification.419

Finally, amendment 4. This deletes part of our motion, so I'm afraid we can't support it, but it does come from the same place. Half our pupils are not achieving their potential, be that at A-levels, GCSEs or other qualifications, but they're also not achieving their potential for self-fulfillment, for economic advancement, for contributing to the prosperous, confident and strong, active society on which our nation should be built.420

Ultimately, it is Welsh Government that must accept responsibility for all that. After 20 years of Labour in Government and all those years of underfunding compared to England, everyone who has been through your education system can look at your amendment. They can see what you think they should be grateful for and what you urge them to call success, and I think that is a pitiful deception, I really do. They deserve an apology, as Plaid Cymru, as the Welsh Conservatives, are asking. They and their children deserve better Government.