Inflated Grades

On Tuesday, the A-level results in the United Kingdom were published. Due to Covid, rather than sit exams grades were awarded based on teacher assessments. These were audited, both internally and externally. Incredibly, 45% of school leavers achieved A or A* grade. This rose to 70% for those in private education.

At the same time there is a huge concern about the missed educational opportunities due lockdowns and lack of face to face teaching. This leads to the somewhat oxymoronic situation of people complaining simultaneously about the lack of teaching during Covid as well as the inflated grades being awarded this Summer. Those achieving A or A* has increased by 75% since the last time end of year exams were sat for A levels.

Are we really doing these children a favour? What about those who return to sitting exams in 2022 or 2023? If the quality of education increases so much through online learning, why bother with physical presence in school at all.

Or have those locked down really been studying that much harder because there was so little else to do. This would be an insult to those who worked hard for their results in 2019. Were they really just that much more lazy? Distracted by being free to meet up in large groups?

And what does this say to politicians? Get rid of teachers and just have it all done online, with one teacher per subject for the entire country?