It’s not been a good couple of weeks for Ofqual.

Faced with the new situation of the cancellation of public examinations, it came up with a flawed model for moderating the assessment data available to it and thousands of students have suffered because of the decisions it made.

Ofqual has fallen short of the aims enshrined in the legislation of 2009 that established it: most significantly it failed “to promote public confidence in regulated qualifications and regulated assessment arrangements.”

It is going to take a lot for Ofqual to come back from where it is now.

But let’s be under no illusion - we need a strong Ofqual.

We need a strong Ofqual

Ofqual plays a crucial role in the UK education landscape: it is the appointed guardian of standards for UK qualifications.

It exists to ensure that there is consistency from year to year, to maintain the “gold standard”, and, prior to this year, Ofqual had been broadly successful at moderating examinations to ensure this.

What’s more, the rapid expansion of British curriculum schools around the world over the past 20 years is testimony to the fact that UK education, in all of its forms, is admired around the world.

This is in no small part because its examination system is considered one of the most rigorous.

Recent events mean that the UK’s reputation as a global leader in secondary education and assessment is at stake.

But precisely because of this, so long as the UK decides to stick with formal high-stakes assessment in the form of GCSEs and A levels (as opposed to moving to a mid-C21 alternative, such as a portfolio model of micro-qualifications), it is vital that Ofqual remains.

Amid all the uncertainty this year, it’s worth understanding the context of what Ofqual usually has to deliver in terms of holding back the inexorable pressure to push up grades from an alliance of government, schools, exam boards, parents and students.

Despite this, Ofqual played a significant part in stemming the upward mark of A-level grades.

Research by the University of Buckingham’s Centre for Education and Employment Research (CEER) analysing A-level grade inflation found that the percentage of A grades rose steadily from 9 per cent in 1984 to 27 per cent in 2010.

A-level results 2020: Grade inflation

Furthermore, it is clear that exams and assessments are not going anywhere, with “centre-assessed grades” clearly not the answer to any future assessment model, as it is a process fraught with difficulty.

Indeed, when the dust eventually settles, 2020 will be remembered as the year of hyper-grade inflation when the percentage of A* rose from 7.7 per cent to 14.3 per cent; A*/A from 25.3 per cent to 38.1 per cent and the pass rate from 97.5 per cent to 99.7 per cent.

As such, it was not wrong that Ofqual tried to put some checks and balances in place to try and retain the A-level gold standard for the class of 2020 and to ensure that there wouldn’t be massive grade inflation.

It’s just that the execution, as we all know, was poor.

However, the idea that we could do away with the regulator is unworkable.

What about next year’s exams?

As thoughts already start to turn to the 2021 exams and the Ucas application round, it is clear that there are big challenges facing education.

We know already that there are likely to be fewer university places available.

There is already a shadow over the 2021 GCSE, BTEC and A-level assessments because these cohorts have missed significant time in the first year of their courses (and may, indeed, miss more if second waves hit).

The questions that all schools are asking are:

• How will the assessment be done in 2021?
• Will we have socially distanced exams, CAGs or some new mechanism?
• How do we do the best by our students this year?

Likely as not, we are heading for a major round of “Education Game Theory” with schools, subject teachers, parents, students and, to a greater or lesser extent, the exam boards and the universities, all trying to second-guess each other.

• Will university offers be higher, because places are already committed?
• Should schools be more generous than usual with predicted Ucas grades?
• Should schools mark mock examinations harshly or generously?

UK education needs clear leadership at this time and, in this context, we need a strong Ofqual more than ever.

But it needs to be an Ofqual that listens to the stakeholders and can balance their interests.

Above all, we need an Ofqual that can be trusted to ensure that there is consistency of the grading of qualifications so that universities and employers can make effective comparisons between applicants from year to year, regardless of their qualification route.

Mark S Steed is the principal and CEO of Kellett School, the British School in Hong Kong; and previously ran schools in Devon, Hertfordshire and Dubai. He tweets @independenthead