The education secretary has said that this year’s GCSE and A-level grades will not be pegged to any other year.
Taking questions today in the House of Commons, Gavin Williamson said the decision was taken not to attempt to tether results to a “certain year” as this would “probably entail the use of some form of algorithm”.
Addressing Mr Williamson in the House, Robert Halfon, chair of the Commons Education Select Committee, said: “The decision to adopt centre-assessed [grades] for the second year in a row does highlight the severity of the damage school closures have done and, whilst I accept that it’s the least worst option that the government has come up with, my concern is not so much about having one’s cake and eating it, but baking a rock cake of grade inflation into the system.
GCSEs and A levels 2021:
“So will [Gavin Williamson] confirm what is the government’s plan to ensure we will not have a wild west of grading, that these grades will be meaningful to employers so as not to damage children’s life chances, and when?
GCSEs and A levels: Fears over grade inflation
“And how will we reverse the grade inflation and what is the rationale for not tethering this year’s grades to last year’s or somewhere between 2019 and 2020? And why not embed quality assurance more broadly rather than rely on random sampling or spot checks?”
The education secretary responded: ”[Mr Halfon] raises an important issue about grade inflation and this is why we have been doing so much work with the exam board, with Ofqual, in terms of ensuring that there’s the proper internal checks as well as the proper external checks.
“We didn’t feel as if it would be possible to peg to a certain year because, sadly, as a result of doing that it would probably entail the use of some form of algorithm in order to be best able to deliver that.”
In letter to Ofqual published today, Mr Williamson gives a much vaguer stipulation of where standards should lie.
He tells chief regulator Simon Lebus that exam board guidance to help teachers grade “should be clear that the expected performance standard is broadly the same as in previous years”.
But the letter adds: “In this exceptional year, this government’s policy is that Ofqual should give priority to results that credibly reflect teachers’ judgements about their students’ performance, rather than seeking to ensure that the national distribution of grades follows a similar profile to that of previous years.”
