Inquest into baccalaureate grades amid calls for ‘justice’

Camilla Turner

THE exam watchdog is investigating International Baccalaureate results after thousands of students missed out on their grades.

Ofqual has requested information from the IB Organisation (IBO), which administered the grades, so it can “scrutinise” the process.

The move comes amid a growing backlash against the latest results, which were awarded to pupils last week.

Nearly 20,000 students have signed a petition calling for “justice”. Many say they have received grades far below their teachers’ predictions or have even lost out on their diploma altogether, despite high predicted grades.

The IB is an alternative qualification to A-levels, which some leading schools offer to students. As with A-levels and GCSES, its exams were cancelled this summer. The IBO said it used coursework, school predicted grades and historic assessment data to calculate the grades for this year. But the student petition claimed that this method had left “lives and futures ruined”.

Ian Power, the general secretary of the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference, which represents the most prestigious British schools, said that 30-40 of its members offered the IB.

“For a number of schools, the grades in some subjects were lower than they expected. We are very upset about what is happening with the IB,” he said.

An IBO spokesman said the grading process “was subjected to rigorous testing by educational statistical specialists” and “checked against the last five years’ sets of results data, to ensure that it would provide reliable and valid grades for students”. It was confident it had awarded grades in the “fairest and most robust way possible”.

An Ofqual spokesman said: “We are continuing to engage with IBO and have requested further information which we are scrutinising,” he said.

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