F for fail! Ofqual boss resigns over exams farce
‘Had to take responsibility’
ENGLAND’S exams boss quit yesterday over her handling of the A-level and GCSE fiasco.
Sally Collier stood down as chief executive of Ofqual after it issued downgraded results generated by a botched algorithm to hundreds of thousands of students.
The Government was forced into a humiliating U-turn, declaring that students would instead receive grades predicted by their teachers.
However Education Secretary Gavin Williamson remains in post despite widespread demands for his own resignation over the fiasco.
Following Mrs Collier’s announcement, he said he ‘wished her well’.
A statement from Ofqual said she ‘ has decided the next stage of the awarding process would be better overseen by new leadership’.
The computerised system of allotting marks led to around 280,000 A-level marks being inexplicably downgraded before the system was axed.
Mrs Collier, 52, resigned after Prime Minister Boris Johnson admitted ‘if we had to do it again, we might have done some things differently’. She enjoyed a pay package of more than £200,000 a year but was entirely absent from the airwaves during the greatest crisis to hit the exam system in its history.
Dame Glenys Stacey, a former head of Ofqual, and Amanda Spielman, Ofsted chief inspector, have been parachuted in on a temporary basis to help the regulator fight for its survival.
Kevin Courtney, joint general secretary of the National Education Union, said: ‘Someone had to take responsibility for the exams fiasco but the issues run far deeper than the actions of one chief executive.
‘We have no sure way of knowing where the balance of fault lies, but we can be quite certain that Gavin Williamson gave direction that there should not be grade inflation and all candidates should get a fair grade.
‘He must have known that both those directions are incompatible.’ Labour education spokesman Kate Green told Sky News: ‘I don’t think the fall guy should have been Ofqual.
‘ They have questions to answer but ultimately responsibility for this fiasco sits fair and square with ministers.’
Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: ‘This follows the failure of the statistical model that led to this year’s grading fiasco but the fault is not hers alone.
Ministers have questions to answer over the extent to which they scrutinised the methodology and reliability of the statistical model, particularly given the enormity of the task and the importance of getting it right.’
Mrs Collier is a lifetime civil servant who specialised in procurement and had no experience in education when she took the post in 2016.
Before her appointment, MPs on the education committee warned that she had ‘some way to go’ to understand the ‘qualifications and curriculum landscape’.
The mother- of- one and devoted Norwich City FC fan rarely made public interventions. Even as the chaos over results erupted, she left Ofqual chairman Roger Taylor to issue a humiliating public apology and fight for the regulator’s reputation.
Mr Williamson had refused repeatedly to declare his confidence in the body until his hand was forced by Mr Taylor threatening to quit last week.
Then the Department for Education issued a statement saying it had ‘full confidence’ in Ofqual. The roots of the flawed algorithm lie in a letter which Mr Williamson sent the regulator cancelling exams on 31 March due to coronavirus.
He told Ofqual to come up with a system which ensured ‘qualification standards are maintained and the distribution of grades follows a similar profile to previous years’.
But the Mail has previously revealed how a top adviser said it was clear the algorithm was ‘doomed’ as far back as June when teacher-assessed grades began to come in.
Ofqual now faces at least one official inquiry from the Office for Statistics Regulation.