The A-Level and GCSE results fiasco shows the government urgently needs to restore the value of coursework

Editorial: Schools should be more than examination factories that put pressure on students to stake their futures on tests of memory

Change in focus would prepare students for university (Getty)

It is increasingly clear that Gavin Williamson’s U-turn over examination grades has not resolved the crisis caused by a summer without exams. He has merely passed the buck to others. Many students now able to go to their first choice university will have to defer for a year, putting the class of 2021 at an unfair disadvantage. More immediately, universities which were many students’ second choice now face severe financial problems due to lower numbers and income from tuition fees, according to Universities UK. The government should look favourably on calls for a bailout.

The education secretary was right to include GCSE as well as A-level results in the decision to rely on teachers’ assessments rather than the flawed algorithm developed by Ofqual, the exams regulator. But a similar downside will probably emerge after pupils receive their GCSE results today. The higher than expected grades will put many sixth form colleges in the same boat as the top universities. High-performing colleges, in a sector consistently undervalued and underfunded by the Conservatives since 2010, will almost certainly find their courses oversubscribed. The government should not leave them in the lurch either.

Hopefully, this exceptional school year will remain just that. Although the government’s focus will be on its next bout of firefighting over the reopening of schools in England early next month, it should find time to pause, reflect and learn the right lessons for our education system from the turmoil of recent months.

When Michael Gove was education secretary, he largely scrapped the practice under which coursework counted towards GCSE and A-level grades in England as part of his drive to raise standards. But making exams harder was no guarantee of higher standards or better equipping young people for the world of work. Indeed, the Sutton Trust found evidence of a wider attainment gap between pupils from poor backgrounds and their better-off classmates.

Although no one could have predicted a year without exams, it would have been very useful if Ofqual had been able to take account of assessed coursework when deciding GCSE and A-level grades. In Wales, where Mr Gove’s reforms were not introduced, the affair has caused fewer problems because such coursework is still used. BTEC courses are modular and students are graded throughout.

A return to coursework counting towards grades in England would be a better and more rounded system than relying solely on a high-stakes exam. It would not mean relying solely on teachers’ subjective judgments, since their work would be overseen by exam regulators. Attaching greater importance to coursework would give students an incentive to work hard and would better prepare them for university. Schools should be much more than examination factories which put pressure on students forced to stake all on a test of memory.

A government whose “levelling up” agenda is even more crucial after the coronavirus pandemic, should also do more to help those who do not shine on the GCSE and A-level conveyor belt. Boris Johnson has guaranteed young people the offer of an apprenticeship and Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, unveiled financial incentives for employers to take on more apprentices in his summer economic statement. Yet the lack of opportunities for the young at a time of rising unemployment means the government should go further. “Levelling up” must mean more than the traditional rhetoric of successive governments about the value of vocational education; it should mean turning the goal of parity of esteem into reality.

During the exam grades fiasco, Mr Johnson and his ministers let down many of the families in Labour’s former “red wall” in the north and midlands who switched to the Tories last December. The prime minister can ill afford to let them down again, by allowing a lost generation to see their career and life prospects scarred by events totally beyond their control.