Exam board Pearson could be fined £1.2 million following marking review failures and awarding of incorrect certificates.
Regulator Ofqual published a notice of intention to impose a monetary penalty today after the exam board breached its own rules from 2016 to 2019.
As a result, Pearson will also be expected to pay the affected schools total damages of £320,510 to reflect the income it received from affected reviews.
The notice says that in the years listed, Pearson “failed to ensure that all of its reviews of marking in respect of its [A-level] and GCSE qualifications” had been entirely completed by a person not involved in the original marking.
Pearson’s failings affected an estimated 46,797 marking reviews over a four-year period, according to Ofqual, representing around 9 per cent of all of the reviews it carried out each year.
The notice also said that, in some cases, “Pearson also failed to ensure that the reviews of marking were carried out by someone who had no personal interest in the outcome of the review”.
Ofqual said that this was a result of insufficient numbers of examiners, a failure to “maintain appropriate systems of planning and internal control” and a failure “to take all reasonable steps to identify the risk of an incident occurring which could have had an Adverse Effect”.
Despite the notice, Ofqual said said there was “no evidence” showing that the failings resulted in students being awarded the wrong grade as most of the reviews were carried out by senior examiners.
Pearson has also said it will complete the actions set out in its Action Plan to ensure compliance with the conditions for all future exam series.
Incorrect certificates
Ofqual also said today that it intends to impose a further fine of £150,000 due to the exam board issuing “incorrect” certificates in 2017 and 2018.
The notice said Pearson had accepted it had issued inaccurate qualification certificates for some GCSE qualifications in 2017 and 2018.
The affected certificates failed to include the words “short course” to show that the student had obtained a short course award rather than a full qualification.
A spokesperson for Pearson said: “We accept Ofqual’s notice of intention to impose a fine on us for findings on a short course certification error and review of marking practices that were inadvertently used three years ago.
“Both issues were fixed by 2020 and Ofqual has confirmed that no student grades were affected. We will be refunding schools and colleges where re-marking was not fully compliant. We will be making representations on this notice as due process allows.”
