Schools minister Nick Gibb and Ofqual interim chief regulator Simon Lebus are set to be questioned by MPs over the 2021 GCSE and A-level results outcomes, as well as the plans for grading next year.
Alongside Ofqual interim chair Ian Bauckham, Mr Lebus and Mr Gibb will answer questions from the Commons’ Education Select Committee next month about what lessons have been learned from the past academic year.
There are concerns about grade inflation after more than two in five - 44.3 per cent - of 2021 A-level grades awarded to 18-year-olds were an A or A* compared with 25.5 per cent in 2019, the last year formal public exams were held.
GCSE and A level results 2021: What did teachers learn?
More on this year’s GCSE and A-level results:
Mr Gibb, Mr Lebus and Mr Bauckham will appear before the select committee on Tuesday 7 September.
Questions may also explore the gap between private and state school performance in the 2021 results, and the lack of support for pupils with special educational needs or disabilities or for pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds.
The committee will also ask about plans for assessment in summer 2022.
Robert Halfon, chair of the select committee, said: “Students, along with their hardworking teachers and support staff, deserve to be congratulated on some outstanding results after overcoming all the challenges posed in this most difficult of years.
“Ofqual and the Department for Education must now focus on ensuring all young people, particularly those that have missed out the most on learning during the pandemic, are properly supported in taking exams next summer.
“There also needs to be a proper plan for returning to more normal grading standards to reverse the grade inflation that has been baked into the system.”
Commenting on the planned committee session, the NAHT headteachers’ union said it wanted to see MPs pushing for “immediate publication of the contingency measures for 2022 so that schools can work them into their plans for this year now”.
