Tories refuse to apologise for 11th hour A-Level results fiasco
UNDER-FIRE Schools Minister Nick Gibb refused to apologise for the exam chaos that has left thousands of A-level students facing an agonising wait to see if they can go to university from today.
Changes announced late on Tuesday mean pupils receiving predicted grades can use their mock results if they are better – but they will not be able to appeal until at least next week.
Head teachers labelled the changes “panicked and chaotic” and warned they would lead to a “massive inconsistency” in the way grades were awarded.
But bullish Mr Gibb insisted: “There is no confusion.
“We had to have a system in place to award qualifications to young people given that we had cancelled the exams.
“We apologise to nobody for finding solutions, even at the 11th hour, to stop any student being disadvantaged by this system.”
The Tory MP even awarded the Government an A-minus for its handling of the exams affair.
Mr Gibb spluttered when asked whether he would give the Government a D or an E for its handling of the affair, then said it deserved an A-minus “or somewhere in that vicinity”.
The decision plunges thousands of students into an angst-ridden weekend as they wait to see if they will be able to go to university.
Shadow Education Secretary Kate Green said it would be “very, very worrying” for A-level students to find the system was changing again just a day before getting results.
“Not all students will have even taken mock exams and what we’ve now got is a system which clearly is not fit for purpose,” she said.
The changes come in the wake of a dramatic U-tur n by the Scottish Government after 124,000 results were
Kate Green
Tory Gavin Williamson
downgraded. Here, the Government confirmed that two out of five A-level grades handed out today will have been “revised” – many of them downwards – from what teachers predicted earlier this year in a “standardisation process”.
Exam regulator Ofqual issued a statement yesterday saying it will only be able to give more details next week on how the appeals will work.
The Government announced its “triple lock” that will let GCSE and A-level students use their mock results if they are better late on Tuesday.
The changes came in after exams were cancelled due to coronavirus,