Government braces for battle with teachers’ unions as exams fiasco simmers
There was a noticeable calm as GCSE students received their grades today, following a chaotic week over the algorithmic grading of A-level results released last Thursday. Now based on teacher assessments, almost every GCSE subject has seen a large increase in the achievement of top grades, with most schools in England attaining record highs.
The percentage of GCSE papers awarded grade 4 or above was 78.8% this year, up from 69.9% last year, with the sciences experiencing particularly large bumps. A total of 54% of GCSE Biology students received one of the top three grades in 2020, up from 43.4% in 2019. In Chemistry, the achievement of top three grades went up from 44.1% to 53.5%, and in Physics the rise was from 44% to 53.2%.
Schools Minister Nick Gibb congratulated the students on their achievements, and reiterated the government’s apology for last week’s chaos. “I would say this to them: congratulations on what you have achieved, but also how sorry I am for the pain, and the anxiety, and the uncertainty that they would have suffered as a consequence of the grading issues that we encountered last week,” he told BBC Breakfast.
Confusion remains, however, over the provision of BTEC results. Last night, hours before results day, some BTEC grades were pulled by the exam board Pearson, which has requested more time to reassess grades on the basis of the government’s revised system. “We have become concerned about unfairness in relation to what are now significantly higher outcomes for GCSE and A-Levels,” the board said.
Concerns have also been raised about the effects of higher grades on employment prospects. The grade inflation noted above may be perceived by some employers as extra-leniency, thus making this year’s results an unreliable basis on which to judge a candidate. Nick Gibb himself has previously defended Ofqual’s ill-fated algorithm on the basis that “a young person goes to employers, says they’ve got these A-level grades and the employer says, ‘oh but they’re 2020, we had to discount them’.”
That shift in Gibb’s tone encapsulates the Department for Education’s credibility problem coming out of this fiasco. The appearance of both incompetence and weakness will make it difficult for the government to force schools to reopen in two weeks time, and has emboldened groups who were always opposed to the notion. The Education Solidarity Network, a left-wing faction of the National Education Union, will hold street protests tomorrow across the country in protest of the government’s reopening plans.
The ESN has also threatened to unilaterally shut down schools if the infection rate in local areas rises above 50 in 100,000. The Conservative party’s co-chair, Amanda Milling, responded firmly, saying “this hard-left action takes a wrecking ball to our children’s futures”, but there was no apparent smack-down from the Department for Education itself.
Britons have been forgiving of the government’s errors during this crisis. They recognise that mistakes will inevitably be made in the handling of a once-in-a-century pandemic. But public good will is running thin on the state’s inability to continue educating children, arguably the most important public provision there is.
Plans to bring back education will be realised over the coming weeks. If this process turns out anything like the exams fiasco, the public response will be unforgiving.