Questions raised over ‘fairness’ of various A-level grading requirements
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listed here are inquiries to be requested in regards to the “fairness” of the examination system as completely different grading requirements have been utilized in completely different UK nations, based on a social mobility skilled.
A-level ends in England, Wales and Northern Ireland have been printed, with every nation taking a person method this 12 months to grading and help supplied to pupils following modifications throughout the pandemic.
But this has led to warnings from some quarters in regards to the affect on college students.
Lee Elliot Major, professor of social mobility on the University of Exeter, stated: “Questions must be asked about the fairness of an examination system that has applied different grade standards to different year cohorts of students but also students in the same year – depending on whether they live in England, Scotland or Wales.”
In England, exams regulator Ofqual had stated this 12 months’s A-level outcomes can be decrease than final 12 months and they might be much like these in 2019 as a part of efforts to return to pre-pandemic grading.
It comes after Covid-19 led to a rise in high grades in 2020 and 2021, with outcomes based mostly on trainer assessments as a substitute of exams.
Many A-level college students in Wales and Northern Ireland got advance details about matters to anticipate of their examination papers this summer time, however pupils in England weren’t given the identical help.
Ofqual beforehand stated it constructed safety into the grading course of in England this 12 months to recognise the disruption that college students have confronted, which ought to have enabled a pupil to get the grade they might have acquired earlier than the pandemic even when the standard of their work is a bit of bit weaker as a consequence of disruption.
Speaking because the outcomes had been printed, Ofqual chief regulator Jo Saxton stated: “I think what’s really important is to remember the context here.
“There have been differences between qualifications across the devolved administrations for as long as there’s been devolution pretty much.
“Again, because we work hand-in-hand with universities and employers, these are well understood.
This is now the time we’ve chosen, and we think it is the right time…, that we return to the normal grading system
“The number of students who cross borders is fewer than 5% in terms of crossing borders to study at HE and universities are used to working with over 700 qualification types.
“Of course, teachers don’t teach more than one of the qualification types, so again it is well understood by teachers.
“I really, really understand why people are worried that this might be an issue, but I just don’t think that it is.”
Education Secretary Gillian Keegan insisted the way in which A-levels have been graded in England is truthful.
She advised BBC Breakfast: “At some point you have to sit exams in life, they usually come to all of us.
“Clearly when it was their GCSEs, it was right in the middle of the pandemic, they all got teacher-assessed grades. This is now the time we’ve chosen, and we think it is the right time – it is two years after the pandemic – that we return to the normal grading system.”
The A-level outcomes present that in England, 26.5% of entries had been awarded an A or A* grade this summer time, in comparison with 35.9% final 12 months and 25.2% in 2019.
In Wales, 34.0% of entries had been awarded an A or A* grade this 12 months, in comparison with 40.9% final 12 months and 26.5% in 2019.
Meanwhile, in Northern Ireland 37.5% of entries had been awarded the highest grades, in comparison with 44.0% final 12 months and 29.4% in 2019.
The cohort of scholars who’re receiving their A-level outcomes didn’t sit GCSE exams and had been awarded teacher-assessed grades amid the pandemic.
Geoff Barton, basic secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, stated college admissions service Ucas is used to coping with completely different training programs – for instance AS-levels function otherwise in Wales and Northern Ireland than in England.
He stated these utilizing their A-level outcomes to use to school “should not be worried” as Ucas understands the variations in {qualifications}.
Asked if English A-level college students may very well be at a higher drawback when making use of to school than college students in Wales and Northern Ireland, Clare Marchant, chief govt of Ucas, stated: “No, because what’s happened is of course, all those grading arrangements were known since way back in the autumn last year, so autumn 2022 when each of the nations said what the grading arrangements were going to be, so universities and colleges when they were making offers in the spring this year, knew what the grading arrangements were.
“Universities and colleges across the UK take hundreds of different qualifications each year, both UK qualifications and international qualifications they’re used to dealing with different qualifications with different levels of value and all of that, so it’s absolutely not a problem universities and colleges are used to it.”