BORIS Johnson could be forced to cancel his Scottish staycation and head south to sort out England’s exam crisis.
The Prime Minister, his fiancée Carrie Symonds and their four-month-old son Wilfred are reportedly north of the border today for a summer camping trip.
But with mounting anger over last week’s A level results from pupils, teachers, and politicians, the Tory chief is being urged by his own furious backbenchers to fix the chaos caused by the algorithm used to moderate teachers assessments.
Several Tory MPs have called on Johnson the government to follow Scotland’s lead and base results on pupil’s predicted grades.
Robert Syms, a Tory MP, said: “In December people voted for Boris Johnson to run the country, not an algorithm. What’s happening was avoidable. We saw what happened in Scotland, they got themselves in a hole then got themselves out. We seem to have gone headfirst in and are still digging.
“There is real risk of Tory MPs going on the warpath. In the current situation we ought to err on the side of allowing grade inflation. The government is defending Ofqual; I’m not sure it should be. It should be on the side of hard-working students and families.”
READ MORE: English exams chaos as ministers refuse to budge and students plan court action
Anger at the system deepened over the weekend when Ofqual briefly published advice on appeals that contradicted the government’s position.
It has now been taken offline and is under review.
Robert Halfon, Tory chairman of the education select committee, told BBC Breakfast: “This is a huge mess. Goodness knows what is going on at Ofqual. It sows confusion among pupils, head teachers, school teachers. It’s the last thing we need at this time. We want a Ronseal appeals system, not Kafkaesque exam grades that no one understands. This is just unacceptable.”
READ MORE: Welsh Government changes exam results process as No 10 refuses to budge
David Davis, the former Brexit secretary, said: “There will be a lot of youngsters who will say this is the opposite of a level-up agenda. We may pay a price for that.”
Last night the Northern Irish assembly followed Scotland’s lead and said GCSE students will be awarded the grades predicted by their teachers.
The Stormont Assembly is set to be recalled from summer recess to debate the furore caused by the standardisation formula used for A-levels.
As in Scotland, the system of moderation used to make sure the results were credible looked at the history of achievement of the pupil’s school. That Led to thousands of A-level students having their marks downgraded because of where they studied, rather than because of their work.
This had a disproportionate impact on students living in areas of deprivation.
Last week, Gavin Williamson criticised the Scottish approach, saying the system had no controls. He said: “You’ve got rampant grade inflation. There’s been no checks and balances; it degrades every single grade.”
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