Commenting on today's publication of A Level and vocational
qualification results in England, Dr Mary Bousted, Joint General
Secretary of the National Education Union, said:
"The politics of results season 2020 has drowned out the
most important point - that students must be congratulated for
their hard work and patience through a difficult time for the
whole nation. Teachers and school and college leaders have tried
their best, during a time of great uncertainty, to support and
help the young people they teach. They have been let down by a
poor system and last-minute political decisions.
"Students have been knocked from pillar to post this year
through no fault of their own. In Scotland, many pupils suffered
a week of real anguish over lower grades than they expected, only
for their centre assessed grades to be reinstated. Wales has the
benefit of external exams (AS Levels) taken partway through the A
Level course to use as a backstop - unlike in England, where
has taken
pre-emptive measures which only serve to show he has no
confidence in and cannot defend the system he created during
lockdown.
"Williamson's plan is a real insult to young people and
their parents, who depend on a credible system which is supposed
to help students on their way to a bright future. For those
having to sit autumn exams, that future will now be postponed.
For others, the competition for university places has been
intensified due to different decisions being made in Scotland.
And it remains to be seen quite how unfair the Government's plan
will be for students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
"Years of misconceived structures in the exams process have
come back to haunt the Westminster Government. Students have been
downgraded for reasons which to them will be obscure. So not only
will the result be devastating, but many will discover it has
nothing to do with their own performance and everything to do
with the past attainment of their school. Student prospects this
year were governed by an algorithm, and the unfairness of that
process has been fully exposed.
"Gavin Williamson's solution is no 'triple lock' but a menu
of bad options. Teachers and pupils who know how mock exams
differ even among subjects in the same school will wonder what
counts as a 'valid' mock exam result, and the suggestion that
this should be viewed as more reliable than teacher assessment is
simply nonsensical. In other nations, pupils at least have the
security of AS Level results giving a percentage of their final
grade, rather than basing their entire future on a single set of
exams.
"This is why the appeals process is more important than
ever. It needs to be accessible to all and resourced properly to
cope with demand, so that no further delays are created in the
lives of young people.
"And, in the longer term, the A Level system that was once
hailed by politicians as a gold standard needs to be radically
overhauled.
“The Scottish Government realised it had made a mistake,
apologised and promised to put it right. has
apologised and promised to put things right, but his solution
causes more problems than it solves. We are now, at the eleventh
hour, dealing with a crisis which should never have arisen. The
only solution is to award students the grades their teachers -
who know them better than any computer data prediction - think
they would have achieved.
"This pandemic is not over yet and the course of Covid-19
will lead to big changes in society and in education. Now is the
time for the Government to sit down, with heads, teachers and
their union representatives, to talk about how we can all deliver
the best for the children we teach and restore confidence in our
qualifications and exam system."
