BEACHCOMBER
103 YEARS OLD AND STILL TRIPLE A-STAR ASSESSED…
HAVING one’s level of attainment downgraded to two Cs and a D can be very damaging to one’s self-esteem, yet that is just one example of the turmoil that has arisen over allocating grades for examinations that were not taken.
This particular case dates from more than a week ago, when revised GCSE grades were issued with 78.8 per cent of candidates rated grade 4 or above compared with 69.9 per cent in 2019.
This was described in early BBC news reports as “an increase close to nine per cent on last year”.
Numerate viewers such as myself were horrified. Rising from 69.9 per cent to 78.8 per cent is an increase of almost nine percentage points, not an increase of nine per cent. It is, in fact, an increase of almost 13 per cent. Increasing 69.9 by nine per cent would bring it up to only
76.2 not 78.8.
After repeating this terminological inexactitude a few times, the BBC quietly corrected it in later reports, but neither the Government nor any other authority has issued a formal apology. Some sources we have spoken to blame the Office for Percentages, OfPerc, for devising an algorithm for calculating percentage change that was unfit for purpose. OfPerc officials, however, insist that their algorithm is fair and that anyone should be able to subtract one number from another, divide the result by the first number then multiply by 100. Subtraction, division and multiplication all in one algorithm, however, is seen by many as too cumbersome and when that caused it to be applied incorrectly, the mistake led automatically to another algorithm being invoked, which downgraded the BBC to CCD. While accepting full responsibility for the initial error, BBC officials have been reluctant to change their name to three letters signifying Colony Collapse Disorder, a phenomenon concerning the abrupt disappearance of honey bees.
“We only downgraded ourselves modestly to BBC in the first place,” a spokesperson explained. “Because we didn’t want to be confused with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Anyway, our own impartial assessment of our performance was A-star, A-star, B, so calling us the BBC does not do us justice.”