Dealing with the disease: The urgent need for exam reform

Every so often a crisis appears in education which causes us to stop think. The A-Level crisis of August 2020 needs to be one of those moments. Although it has been portrayed as the catastrophic result of changes brought in haste due to Covid-19, the systems which have underpinned the current crisis have been in place for decades. The examinations system is the sick-man of education. What we have been witnessing over the last week is the tragic outcome of a diseased system, the underlying issues of which have festered away unchecked and untreated for far too long. It’s time to look for a cure. Let me explain...

The crisis
First a very brief overview of the specific crisis this summer. During the coronavirus lock down, formal examinations of pupils were cancelled by the DfE. A decision was taken to ensure students were still graded despite not sitting exams (we could discuss the problems in this too, but there is no space here). The statement from Gavin Williamson (below) really should have raised more questions and scrutiny at the time. The notion that grades for 2020 would be indistinguishable from other years despite students not sitting exams, or that “grading” in the usual way was the best outcome for students, were assumptions which should have been more robustly challenged. However, too many were unwilling to think through the potential consequences or were blinded by their faith in what they believed to be a robust and functioning examinations system which achieved fairness in normal years.

Read More