British Prime Minister Boris Johnson's government was facing a backlash over pupil's grades on Friday after administrators cut the marks of two out of five children who went through England's benchmark school leaving exam.
Opposition leader Keir Starmer led a charge against the government's handling of the awards following the pandemic and a decision not to hold final examinations.
"Across the last 24 hours we have heard heartbreaking stories and the scale of the injustice caused by the fatally flawed results system has become clear," he wrote on Twitter. "Young people and parents right across the country, in every town and city, feel let down and betrayed."
The plight of two pupils among hundreds relayed on radio and television was emblematic. Mithusan Thiagarajah was offered a place to study medicine at Cambridge University but the offer was withdrawn when the predicted 4A* result was downgraded.
"No one has ever gone to Cambridge in my school," he told the BBC. "I wanted to make everyone who believed in me proud, my parents, my school and most importantly myself. I knew I would get those grades if I actually did those exams."
Another pupil reacted to the award of a D grade where her teacher had given a B. "I've never got a D in my life ever, I just don't want a D."
Mr Johnson defended his government’s handling of the pandemic-hit school exam scores in England after swathes of pupils' grades were downgraded by an algorithm in what the opposition Labour Party described as a “fiasco.”
With pupils unable to sit tests because of the coronavirus, teachers gave an estimate, which was then adjusted by exam boards. According to the Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation (Ofqual), 39 per cent were downgraded by the algorithm, which also took into account pupils' past test scores and - controversially - results achieved by past cohorts at their schools.
“I think this is a robust system and one that is dependable for employers,” Mr Johnson said. “It’s very important that for years to come people should be able to look at these grades and think these are robust.”
The backlash over exam results adds to the criticism facing Mr Johnson over his handling of the pandemic and on education, with ministers under fire over plans to get schools reopened full-time in September. That’s critical to the government’s broader plans for reopening the economy, because keeping pupils at home makes it more difficult for parents to go to work.
Mr Johnson also defended Education Secretary Gavin Williamson over the exam furore, saying, “It was obviously going to be very difficult in the absence of formal proper exams.”
The Conservative Home website, a party aligned forum, applauded Mr Williamson for fighting a battle against grade inflation (most teachers are optimistic about the work of their pupils) but cautioned he was not well placed for the intensity of the oncoming storm.
Commentator Henry Hill compared the grades controversy to picking a winners for this summer's postponed Olympic Games. "Trying to hand out grades based on cancelled exams is like trying to issue medals for a cancelled Olympics. No matter how clever the maths is, people are going to be unhappy.
"Few people, if any, seem to have grasped in advance the scale of the problem.
"When the dust finally settles, this will join the flailing effort to get schools open on the long, long list of failures of the state to be picked over post-pandemic."
Mr Williamson has said students unhappy with their grades would be able to appeal, and would also be able to choose the highest score from either their calculated grade, the result of an exam sat later in the year, or the result of a “mock” or practice exam taken before the pandemic at the start of the year.
The plan, announced just hours before the results were released, was criticised by Labour and teaching unions. They said “mock” exams were poor indicators for likely performance in final tests, and that it would be unfair to make students sit exams many months into the the future.
Ofqual said grades were downgraded because the estimates provided by teachers had been too optimistic, and would have led to unprecedented grade inflation had they stood.
A-Levels are also administered for UAE students but under a different standalone testing system.
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Nepotism is the name of the game
Salman Khan’s father, Salim Khan, is one of Bollywood’s most legendary screenwriters. Through his partnership with co-writer Javed Akhtar, Salim is credited with having paved the path for the Indian film industry’s blockbuster format in the 1970s. Something his son now rules the roost of. More importantly, the Salim-Javed duo also created the persona of the “angry young man” for Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan in the 1970s, reflecting the angst of the average Indian. In choosing to be the ordinary man’s “hero” as opposed to a thespian in new Bollywood, Salman Khan remains tightly linked to his father’s oeuvre. Thanks dad.
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Our legal columnist
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Advocate at Al Bahar & Associate Advocates and Legal Consultants, established in 1994
Education: Mr Al Bahar was born in 1979 and graduated in 2008 from the Judicial Institute. He took after his father, who was one of the first Emirati lawyers
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Juvenile arthritis
Along with doctors, families and teachers can help pick up cases of arthritis in children.
Most types of childhood arthritis are known as juvenile idiopathic arthritis. JIA causes pain and inflammation in one or more joints for at least six weeks.
Dr Betina Rogalski said "The younger the child the more difficult it into pick up the symptoms. If the child is small, it may just be a bit grumpy or pull its leg a way or not feel like walking,” she said.
According to The National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases in US, the most common symptoms of juvenile arthritis are joint swelling, pain, and stiffness that doesn’t go away. Usually it affects the knees, hands, and feet, and it’s worse in the morning or after a nap.
Limping in the morning because of a stiff knee, excessive clumsiness, having a high fever and skin rash are other symptoms. Children may also have swelling in lymph nodes in the neck and other parts of the body.
Arthritis in children can cause eye inflammation and growth problems and can cause bones and joints to grow unevenly.
In the UK, about 15,000 children and young people are affected by arthritis.
