Commenting on contingency arrangements for exams in 2022,
published today by the Department for Education and Ofqual,
Dr Mary Bousted, Joint General Secretary of the National
Education Union, said:
“This is the third year in a row that decisions about the
contingency plans for GCSE, AS and A levels have been published.
Yet again teachers and leaders have been left in limbo, teaching
pupils who are in their final GCSE and A level years without
knowing how they will be assessed if the exams cannot take place.
The lack of urgency is shameful and an affront to parents, pupils
and their teachers – all of whom needed to know, much earlier
than today, how they would be assessed if the exam system fell
over, as it did last year and the year before.
“It is regrettable that successive education ministers trot out
the tired old line that ‘exams are the best and fairest method of
assessment’. Saying so repeatedly does not make it true. The
current qualification system has hugely narrowed the range of
subjects taken at A level and left England at the top of the OECD
international rote-learning league tables. Exams are good for
assessing some things. Other forms of assessment, such as
extended project work, are good for other competences and skills
that young people will need in the 21st century. It is time
we had a proper debate about exams and it is time that the
government engaged with the profession in this debate.”
