The harsh reality for all students due to sit exams this year is that there were no A-Levels and GCSEs in 2020. Let’s not pretend otherwise. Students did not have the chance to show what they could do. Some would have done better than expected and some worse. No calculated model can replicate exams that did not happen and we should not pretend that it can. It is understandable that many would prefer to rely on their teacher’s predictions than an algorithm that takes no account of them as an individual.
The challenge is that many universities, employers and colleges rely solely on exam grades to admit students to the next phase of their career. In addition, they will make more offers than places, because every year some students don’t make their grades. Students can’t all go to their first choice option and that is the same every year. There is always disappointment.
How should Ofqual decide which students would not have made their grades, had they sat the exams? Teachers predict grades based on the premise that if all goes well on the day, this is what their students could achieve. We know that all does not go well on the day for all students. Exam results can be affected by extraneous factors and although never predicted by teachers, some students do receive a U grade when sitting exams for many different reasons.
It is ludicrous to assume that in current circumstances it is possible to identify which students would have received a U. Clearly Ofqual cannot do that. Ofqual failed students by failing to recognise the individual and the impact on the individual and their future. It was also foolish to behave as if exams had happened, when they did not.
It is simply not feasible to decide these issues by algorithm.
I would urge employers, colleges and universities to do what they can to accommodate the students to whom they made offers. If places are limited, they should hold interviews or online tests and use their judgement. Neither predicated grades nor grades calculated by an algorithm can replace actual exam results. Of primary importance is that we cannot let this pandemic block students from pursuing their career goals and that is what we all need to focus on now.
