The Education Secretary denies that he missed early warnings and said that he only became aware of issues over the weekend
Gavin Williamson, the UK’s Education Secretary, has resisted calls to resign as a cabinet minister, saying that he is “incredibly sorry for the distress” that the A-level and GCSE results issue had caused to students.
He said that up until the exam results day last week he had “every confidence” that the controversial algorithm system that was used to grade pupils whose exams had been cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic would not penalise those students from disadvantaged areas.
However, over the weekend, when he said “it became clear there were anomalies”, the government took a U-turn on the system.
This comes after some 35.6% of all exam results were adjusted down by one grade, and 3.3% were brought down by two grades, with 0.2% dropping down by three grades, after almost 40% of all A-level results in England have been downgraded after exams were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I’m incredibly sorry for the distress that it’s caused to those young people,” Mr Williamson told Kay Burley@Breakfast on Tuesday.
“But it was still the right thing to do to make the changes we made yesterday…”
“At the core of it was ensuring there was fairness across the system.”
Heartbreaking stories immediately began to be told on social media platforms in the aftermath of the results day from those students who had lost out on their desired university places as a result and in some cases, students lost out on the opportunity to be awarded a bursary.
England is the final of the nations within the UK to ditch the system of moderated grades and mark pupils according to teachers’ predictions instead on Monday, following Scotland, Northern Ireland and then Wales having already done the same.
Frustrated students protested outside of Westminster and outside Mr Williamson’s South Staffordshire constituency office before the government’s U-turn was announced, demanding the resignation of the Education Secretary.
Mr Williamson had also been challenged over a report by an influential Conservative MP who chairs the Commons education select committee, which had found back in July that the marking system for exams “could be unfair” for those disadvantaged pupils, as well as those from ethnic minority backgrounds.
But the education secretary denied that he missed these early warnings from that report and from other experts, insisting that it was only “when we saw the results directly coming out” that it became clear to him that there was indeed a problem with the system in place.
This comes after the First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, has apologised after pupils in some of the most underprivileged areas of Scotland have had their exam pass rate downgraded by as many as two times than that of students from the wealthiest regions of the country.
Downing Street has stressed that the Prime Minister, who is currently on holiday in Scotland, has full confidence in Mr Williamson his cabinet minister.
But those words from the party leader have not quelled the anger completely on the Conservative benches, with former cabinet minister George Freeman coming the closest yet to calling for Gavin Williamson to resign.
He said the “exam shambles” raises “worrying” questions “about leadership” at the Department for Education.
The Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, had previously given his full endorsement to the exam results algorithm on Thursday last week.
He said: “Let’s be in no doubt about it: The exam results we’ve got today are robust, they’re good, they’re dependable for employers.”
