Universities told to cut their A-level offers to help poorest students
UNIVERSITIES should further lower their A-level offers to disadvantaged students, MPs were told yesterday.
Lee Elliot Major, a professor of social mobility, said the pandemic meant institutions and employers would have to be more creative and radical in judging talent.
He called for a review of teacher-assessed GCSE and A-level results this summer to look at fairness among different groups.
‘The worry is that unintentionally teachers will underestimate, sometimes, the academic potential of poorer pupils, potentially those from black backgrounds, and potentially boys as well,’ he said.
‘Universities are going to have to think about lowering grades further for those students that can show that they have been particularly disrupted by this.’
The Exeter University professor told MPs that students who left their revision to the last minute might lose out most, especially less mature summer-born children.
He told the Commons education committee that a ‘tsunami of anxiety’ faced Year 10 and Year 12 pupils who are due to sit GCSEs and A-levels next year.
Kevin Courtney, joint general secretary of the National Education Union, called for grade boundaries to be adjusted this summer.
He acknowledged the move was controversial but insisted it was needed to ensure pupils were not unfairly disadvantaged.
‘There needs to be more children getting all of the higher grades,’ he told the MPs. ‘Where there is doubt, somebody should move up a grade rather than moving down a grade.
‘That will mean the exams will be regarded as not having the same rigour as the previous exam series, but I don’t see how else we’re going to get through this.’
Sally Collier, the chief regulator at the watchdog Ofqual, said the Government was considering the impact of lost teaching on grading next year’s exams.
Secondary school pupils could face a rota system of two weeks on and two weeks off in September, according to Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders. He said it was unlikely all students would return full time after the summer holidays.