Commenting on the evidence of the Secretary of State for
Education to the House of Commons Education Committee over the
process for awarding GCSE and A-level grades this summer, Geoff
Barton, General Secretary of the Association of School and
College Leaders, said:
“We are not sure that we are very much further forward in
understanding what went wrong with the grading process this
summer.
“The Secretary of State for Education’s evidence seemed to boil
down to calculated grades being the right approach in the
circumstances but there were ultimately too many inconsistencies.
Ofqual’s evidence earlier this month was that it did its best
with what proved to be an impossible task.
“Pupils, teachers, parents and taxpayers deserve better answers
than this.
“It remains a mystery as to why Ofqual’s chief regulator ended up
standing down and why the Prime Minister decided that there was a
need for ‘fresh official leadership’ at the Department for
Education resulting in the Permanent Secretary standing down.
“We have previously called on the Secretary of State for
Education to commission an independent review into the grading
fiasco but we haven’t received a reply. We repeat that call now.
This must happen in order to gain a full understanding of what
went wrong and ensure that lessons are learned for the future.”
