Nick Ferrari tells Schools Minister he'd have quit if he'd presided over A-level fiasco

20 August 2020, 08:24 | Updated: 20 August 2020, 08:40

Nick Ferrari told the Schools Minister that he would have quit if he was in charge of a fiasco the size of the A-level results.

Hundreds of thousands of students are receiving their GCSE results this morning following a major U-turn on how they're graded.

The government have announced the results will be based on the higher of either their teacher's predicted grade or a moderated one worked out by an algorithm.

Last week, Nick Gibb told LBC that the algorithm was necessary because grade inflation would make the results less valuable. But this morning, he insisted going with teacher assessments was the right decision.

Nick Ferrari asked him: "When we discussed this last week, you said that it wasn't the right decision because it would debase this year's A-levels and anyone who said they got their A-levels this year, employers would fall about laughing.

"Now you're saying it is the right decision. Do you change your opinion as often as you change your socks?"

Mr Gibb responded: "I change my opinion when the facts change. What do you do, Nick?"

Nick told him: "If I presided over this shambles, Nick, I'd quit. I wouldn't have the balls to stay in post because I'd let too many people down.

"Have you offered to quit?"

The Minister admitted: "I gave it a lot of thought. I'm a human being.

"When I saw some of those young people who had worked solidly for two years, expecting As and Bs, picking up their grades and finding three Ds and losing their place at veterinary college, of course, it's heartbreaking.

"Of course I thought about these issues over the weekend. But it would have been the wrong thing to do.

"My focus has to be to on making sure we put these issues right, that young people get the grades that are fair and that they can move on to the next stage of their career."

Mr Gibb insisted that his conversations with Prime Minister Boris Johnson have been "very good", another thing that made Nick Ferrari scoff.

Watch the tense interview at the top of the page.