Cancelled exams: another fine mess?
“Grading exams without exams is impossible. Discuss.” It’s a proposition that we will see tested in the real world once again this summer, said The Independent. In January, public exams for 2021 were cancelled. And last week, Education Secretary Gavin Williamson announced that teachers in England would have nearcomplete freedom over how to grade GCSEs, A levels and vocational exams. Williamson said that this year, ministers would “put our trust in teachers rather than algorithms”: he is keen to avoid a repeat of last year’s fiasco, when grades were moderated using a crude algorithm which was then ditched following an outcry. This time, exam boards will produce a series of tests in every subject, but teachers will be able to choose whether to give these to students. They will also be able to use other evidence such as homework, mock exams, coursework or essays. It doesn’t sound very satisfactory, but it is clear there are “no right answers” to this tricky predicament.
There’s a German word, which roughly translates as “trying to fix things but making them worse”, said Sam Freedman in the New Statesman. That is what has happened here. Williamson argued in the Commons that this year’s model would provide “fairness and consistency”, but it would be “hard to design
verschlimmbesserung,
a system less likely to provide consistency if you tried”. Schools can base their grades on “pretty much whatever they want”. There will be very limited moderation; except in extreme cases, the school’s grades will stand. “This puts teachers in an almost impossible position.” They will feel under pressure to give their students the best possible grades, so as not to harm their life chances. On top of this, they will have to deal with sharp-elbowed parents demanding better results: the appeals process will pit students against the school, and not an exam board, as in a normal year.
This is a system “designed to shift the problem from ministerial red boxes and onto the desks of overstretched teachers”, said Debbie Hayton in The Spectator. And it is likely to lead to “outrageously inflated” grades, leaving this year’s cohorts “with worthless pieces of paper” as they emerge into an “appalling jobs market”. The Government has had months to prepare for this, said The Observer. It could at least have designed compulsory tests to examine students on parts of the syllabus that teachers had managed to cover, so exam boards could have awarded proper grades. Instead it has just passed the buck. The pandemic was always going to wreak havoc with education. But once again the Education Secretary has “made things worse”.