It would be “wrong” to resign over the exam grading scandal, as there is yet to be an inquiry into the failings of the system, Nick Gibb has said.
Asked if he will step down in the wake of the chaos surrounding this year’s A-level and GCSE results, the schools minister said he had thought “very seriously” about the issues raised by the scandal, but believed resigning would be “the wrong thing to do”.
Speaking on Channel 4 News yesterday, Mr Gibb claimed the government was “continually vigilant” when it came to the grading model, but “you have to rely on the experts in exam technique and algorithms” to make the system work in practice.
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Asked if he would resign, Mr Gibb said: “I thought about these issues over the weekend very seriously. When I saw the tragic stories of young people getting the results that were unjust…But I thought it would be the wrong thing to do because there would be an inquiry into what happened and why it happened.
“I’m asking you such a simple, human question. Give me a human answer.”@jonsnowC4 questions Schools Minister Nick Gibb over the exam grade fiasco. pic.twitter.com/ESn7YPRf2f
- Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) August 20, 2020
“And the Statistics Authority will be looking at the algorithm. My focus had to be on getting this right.”
He added: “We were continually vigilant about whether this model was going to deliver the right issue. You have to rely on the experts in exam technique and algorithms to convert that model into what went right.”
Yesterday, Mr Gibb admitted that he did not see the Ofqual algorithm used to calculate this year’s exam grades until it was published on A-level results day.
He made a distinction between the “model” and the “algorithm” used to determine students’ grades, arguing that the faults that led to last week’s chaos lay with the latter - which, he claimed, was Ofqual’s responsibility.
