Labour pushes for answers after exams U-turn excludes BTEC students

Labour figures have urged the government to provide urgent clarification on outstanding questions following the U-turn on A-Level, AS and GCSE exam grades – including why BTEC students were excluded from the policy change.

In a letter to Gavin Williamson today, Labour’s Kate Green outlined a number of concerns remaining after the government decided to scrap its controversial algorithm for generating school grades in place of usual end-of-year exams.

She asked why BTEC students were left out of the U-turn, which will see the government accept teacher-predicted grades, when “many of them will have applied to university and are in the same position as their A-Level counterparts”.

Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham, who has been considering legal action over the results, told BBC News: “I am not going to let go of my threat of legal action until I hear from ministers that BTEC students have also been protected by this U-turn.”

Exams were cancelled this year due to the coronavirus pandemic and A-Level students across the country received results generated by Ofqual last week. Nearly 40% of pupils saw their teacher-predicted grade moderated down.

The government U-turned on this policy on Monday afternoon and scrapped the system, announcing that it would be adopting teacher predictions as the final grade for students – but excluded BTEC and other vocational courses from this decision.

Commenting on the policy change, Green said: “The UK government has finally listened to young people, their parents, their teachers, and the Labour Party, and changed their approach to exams.

“This was a welcome and necessary change in policy, but we should never have been in this position as the government has had months to get this right. The delay and chaos accompanying means that students, families, and education providers have no answers to essential questions.”

The Shadow Education Secretary added: “It is time for this government to get a grip and provide the clarity that we need to move forward.”

The system adopted by Ofqual was criticised for relying too much on the previous performance of schools and colleges in modelling results, meaning that young people who did well in historically poorer education settings were marked down.

According to analysis of the data released by Ofqual on the distribution of grades, those with a C or above were downgraded from teacher estimations by over 10% among children from the most disadvantaged background.

Labour described this last week as a “huge injustice” and called on the government to waive fees for schools and colleges appealing results. Ofqual published an appeals process on Saturday before withdrawing it only hours later.

Over the weekend, Gavin Williamson had repeatedly rejected criticism and insisted that there would be “no U-turn, no change”. He argued that it would lead to grade inflation and devalue the qualifications.

Labour leader Keir Starmer welcomed the “screeching U-turn” on exam results at the start of this week, describing the government’s decision to abandon the standardisation process as a “victory for thousands of young people”.

Below is the full text of the letter sent to the Education Secretary.

Dear Gavin,

I am pleased your government this afternoon finally reversed its position on A-Level and GCSE results, and will now allow young people to receive the Centre Assessed Grades they deserve for their hard work.

However, the confusion of the past few weeks, and delay in making these important decisions, mean there are now important outstanding issues on which students, parents and institutions need urgent clarity.

I note this evening that you have lifted the cap on university places that was imposed this year. This is important so as to not disadvantage young people who have missed out on their first choice of university. However it raises a number of questions:

Will the cap be lifted only to enable those students holding existing offers to take their place at their chosen university this year or is it a wholesale lifting of the cap?

What capacity is there in the system to accommodate higher numbers of students enrolling on courses?

What happens to a student who has accepted an offer – whether that is through clearing or their insurance option – because their moderated grade was lower than CAG? Are they able to switch institutions? And what happens to any potential accommodation contracts they may have signed should they choose to switch?

Lifting the cap on student numbers will potentially have significant financial implications for some institutions – will your Department be offering them additional support? Can you confirm that no university will be allowed to fail financially as a result of these changes?

What steps have you taken to ensure that universities are prioritising widening participation and that students from disadvantaged backgrounds are not missing out as a result of the events of the past few weeks?

Why are BTEC students excluded from today’s change in policy when many of them will have applied to university and are in the same position as their A-Level counterparts? This is on top of the delays that many have faced in receiving their results. What urgent support are you offering to these students?

Can you also confirm when students and universities will see the grades that they have been awarded?

Many students are still in limbo – what support will be offered to young people who have to defer their place for a year? Is it the government’s policy still to have an autumn exam series – is this an option for young people who still want to improve their grades? What is the government doing to address the problem of home-schooled pupils not receiving GCSEs?

Will you confirm that there will be an appeals process for students not happy with their centre assessed grade, and will these appeals still be free of charge as announced last week?

I look forward to your urgent response on these matters.

Yours sincerely,
Kate Green MP