There is a bumper crop of exam results for the Class of Covid. Now that the governments of all four parts of the United Kingdom have issued results on the basis of teachers’ centre-assessed grades, results are not comparable with last year’s. 

While a quarter of entries were given at least a grade A at A-level last year in England, this year the figure is 13 per cent higher. At GCSE, two-thirds of entries in England were graded 4 (the modern equivalent to a grade C) or above last year, but this year the figure is more than three quarters. 

This then raises questions about what the grades mean, whether their value has been degraded and whether there is grade inflation.

A-level and GCSE results: The unlikeliness of radical shifts

In a normal year, the standard-setting process used by the exam boards and Ofqual is “comparable outcomes”. 

The principle of this approach is that the same percentages of students should get the grades as last year, all else being equal. For example, if this year’s A-level students have similar prior attainment at GCSE, then we might expect them, as a group, to have made the same progress between GCSE and A level as in previous years. 

Radical shifts in the capacity of the education system to produce progress for a cohort of exam takers in a single year are unlikely. So, given that this year’s students had similar prior attainment, the usual standard-setting principles have been busted. 

How students actually perform in the exams is also taken into account in a normal year. Examiners look at what students know and can do, and compare it with the previous year’s examination candidates’ performances. Could it be that this year’s grades represent better performances by the students? Do they know and understand more than last year’s students?

Well, we do not have exam information to compare with last year, but it is hard to sustain this argument, because schools closed in March. When this year’s A-level students go to university, it would hard to argue that they are better prepared than in a normal year.

Grades devalued

But perhaps teachers, knowing more about their students than an exam could ever glean, have presented a more accurate picture of students’ attainment.

This argument is mounted by those who consider that exams do a disservice to the knowledge and skills of young people. Being a snapshot, and often taken under conditions of stress, exam results may not adequately represent what students are capable of.

This argument would apply equally to previous years’ students, though, meaning that this year had been treated more favourably. 

Public confidence in the results could be undermined by grade inflation. This year’s bumper crop means that grades do not have the same meaning as in previous years: they have been devalued. 

A huge social experiment

With a glut of students clutching their grades and gaining access to university places, this will be a year like no other. It is a huge social experiment. Will these students be able to cope with the courses that they gain access to, or should the results and the university places have been more carefully rationed, with inflation controls? 

In the olden days, only a small minority of elite students went to university. Now, half the cohort attend higher education, and most succeed. More people were capable of getting degrees than there were places in the past, and this year’s students are likely to be entirely capable. Universities also have a role in ensuring that students thrive in their studies once they get there. 

Exams, algorithms and centre-assessed grades have different fairness logics. Which is seen as most suitable is a matter of values, and the parameters of assessment systems are therefore set by politicians. 

Individuals’ fortunes differ under each approach. Privileged students have benefited from centre-assessed grades to a greater extent, so this has not been an exercise in ironing out inequalities. 

These results will stick with the Class of Covid throughout their lives. Employers of the future will remember this bumper crop and compare them unfavourably with other years’ students. 

And, for those who have not done as well in the centre-assessed grades as they would have done in exams, the thought that the results are seen as inflated will be doubly galling. 

Jo-Anne Baird is professor of educational achievement, and director of the Department of Education at the University of Oxford. She tweets @Baird_jo_anne