Dr. Harold Hislop:

The calculated grades is an issue we faced with the students of 2020. It is important that given the teachers provided the estimates, the system of calculated grades here has valued those estimates as the primary source of evidence for the giving of scores to students. That said, it is clear that teachers were overly generous in providing those estimates. That is to be expected and hence it is necessary to reduce some of those estimates. The important part of reducing those estimates is concerned with fairness. Those grades have been increased in some schools more than others and sometimes even between different groups of teachers more than others. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary to even out that unfairness within those grades. To do that one must reduce some, but by no means the majority, of the grades. In fact, almost 80% of the grades will remain unchanged and just over 4% of them will be increased. If we must reduce grades, and we estimate approximately one sixth of the total might have to be reduced, then the degree by which one does that reduction is linked in an important way to preserving student acceptability and confidence, as well parent and public confidence, in the system. If we reduce them too severely, as was attempted, for instance, in the UK, and insist on strict comparability with previous years, then the system simply will not work. The whole objective of calculated grades to allow young people to move on will not be achieved.

The Minister has made a decision about a delicate balance that must be achieved within bringing fairness for the cohort of 2020 yet retaining public acceptability and student confidence in the system. It means the set of grades that will come out for 2020 will be higher than they would be normally but they will be nothing like as high as if the teacher estimates had been issued unaltered. If that were to happen then huge unfairness would be dished out to the 2020 students as well as others, and a huge disparity would exist between 2020 students and those of previous years. This is the best balance of fairness that can be achieved for the 2020 cohort while retaining some degree of comparability with previous cohorts of students. One of the background and contextual reasons referred to by the Minister in her opening address was the enormously upset year and the trauma those students have gone through in 2020, which has been quite extraordinary. Certainly, in the advisory committee a huge emphasis was placed on the concerns for those students.