Sunday Blog 29: Exams Fiasco

This is yet another disaster  for a fumbling government which collectively believes itself to be rather good. The plain fact is that by setting up an algorithm based upon  past performance of schools as institutions and applying the statistical outcome to individual students is crude and  grossly unfair. Not only that, it is mathematically flawed.  OFQUAL, another quango whose reputation is now shredded, responsible for overseeing the whole process, requires that teachers rank all students in order of ability, even if the evidence shows their attainment identical. In other words somebody comes out top and somebody comes out bottom even if they are equal.

Put simply, in a 50 student cohort in a school with historic low standards now achieving much improved results, the top ranked student in the subject could end up with an A, while the lowest and E, even though they are equal in attainment. This has happened. It is ridiculous and cruel. It discriminates against schools in poor areas and greatly favours the top fee paying schools. It has to be abandoned.

Reverting to teacher assessment may mean some grade inflation, but that is the price to pay for the extraordinary Covid dominated situation in which we find ourselves. The government has already backed down on the scope for appeals. Now it has made them free. But it needs to show the humility of the Scottish government and make them unnecessary. Teacher assessments are the only useable option in a pretty bad situation, made worse by the entanglement of weak ministers, powerful quangos and vested interests in which the elite wins at the expense of the mass.

Moreover children from the better off backgrounds will do well anyway but those from the underprivileged neighbourhoods get their life changing moment snatched from them. That is an injustice which cannot be allowed to stand.