Furious Iain Dale brands Government's handling of exam results a "political scandal"

17 August 2020, 20:20

Furious Iain Dale slams Government's handling of exam results

This was Iain Dale's furious monologue about the Government's handling of the exam results crisis - he was so enraged he ripped up the Education Secretary's statement.

After days of mounting pressure, and with students left devastated after their results were downgraded by a computer algorithm, No10 changed its policy to allow teacher assessments to dictate student grades.

READ MORE: A-level and GCSE results to be based on teachers’ predictions after u-turn

Iain was relieved the Government did a U-turn, "but the way it's been handled is a political scandal."

"If you're going to do a U-turn, if you're in a crisis, if you're in a hole and you want to stop digging, you have to dig your way out of it. One way to dig yourself out of it is to effectively try and turn some negatives in to positives...you apologise to the people that have been affected by the decision," he said.

"What did the Government do today? What did these maestros decide to have as a communication strategy? What they decided to do was get the head of Ofqual to do a recorded message."

The Government also issued a statement from the Education Secretary Gavin Williamson about the exam results U-turn, which Iain read out then proceeded to rip up, entirely unimpressed.

Iain said that today there should have been a Downing Street press conference where the "Education Secretary should have been out there explaining it all. If he isn't capable of doing that, he shouldn't be in the job, it is as simple as that."

Gavin Williamson, instead, gave one pooled interview to a media outlet.

Citing the similar backlash Scotland received last week for a similar approach to grades, "This is a failure of Government across the United Kingdom."

Mr Williamson said in his statement: "This has been an extraordinarily difficult year for young people who were unable to take their exams.

"We worked with Ofqual to construct the fairest possible model, but it is clear that the process of allocating grades has resulted in more significant inconsistencies than can be resolved through an appeals process."

He added: "We now believe it is better to offer young people and parents certainty by moving to teacher assessed grades for both A and AS level and GCSE results.

"I am sorry for the distress this has caused young people and their parents but hope this announcement will now provide the certainty and reassurance they deserve."