Awarding Qualifications in 2021 and 2022

Daisy Cooper Excerpts

Thursday 22nd July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I ask all Members to focus on shorter questions, as we have two other pieces of business before we get on to the general debate.

[Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD) [V]]

Last month, the Secretary of State said:

“We very much hope and intend for exams to go ahead in 2022”.

That was a statement not exactly brimming with confidence. As the school year draws to a close, more than 1 million school pupils in England, including a third of all secondary school students, are absent because of covid. Are the Government confident that the decisions they have made recently will not affect the ability of schools to reopen safely in October or to stay open safely for the whole academic year, and that young people sitting exams will not be let down for a third year running?

[Nick Gibb]

There is a clear plan that exams will go ahead next year. A large proportion of the pupils who are not in school at the moment are out as a consequence of self-isolating because they have been a close contact of somebody who has tested positive for covid. From 16 August, anybody under the age of 18 will not have to self-isolate as a consequence of coming into such contact. They will be asked to take a PCR test, and when students start school in September they will be asked to take two lateral flow device tests on school premises in that first week of term.

We are determined to do all we can to identify asymptomatic cases of covid, and all the measures in schools—including ventilation and hygiene—will remain in place despite the move to step 4 to ensure that we minimise any risk of transmission of the virus on school premises. As I mentioned in my opening statement, we are also working on contingency plans should it be necessary to cancel exams next year because of the direction of the pandemic. Our very firm plans are to proceed with exams, because they are the fairest way of assessing young people.