Submitted by AWL on 17 November, 2020 - 2:15
Author: Rhodri Evans
The Welsh government has cancelled GCSE and A level exams for 2021 in Wales.
This is good in that it increases pressure on the Tories to cancel them for England, too. The Welsh approach is not that good, though: the summer exams are to be replaced by a series of “externally” set and marked tests, plus teacher assessment (which puts pressure on school managements and teachers to compete to manipulate grades upwards because otherwise their students lose out compared to the next school’s).
GCSEs should be scrapped outright, for good, and need no replacement. Breaking the whole “exam factory” system and replacing A levels requires bigger changes, but is desirable and possible: plenty of countries operate without anything like A levels.
