Awarding of Qualifications: Role of Ministers

Taiwo Owatemi Excerpts

Wednesday 9th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Taiwo Owatemi (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

The Sunday following A-level results day, students in my constituency should have been celebrating their achievements with their families after years of hard work. Instead, they were in Coventry city centre protesting the unjust algorithm that levelled them down, in some cases, by three to four grades, denying them their place at university.

I stood with them that Sunday, not just as their MP but as a former student at a school deemed failing by Ofsted. I suspect that if I had been a student this year, my postcode would not have passed the Government’s algorithm test, and my grades would have been downgraded significantly. I would have lost out on my place to study pharmacy, and the NHS would have had one less pharmacist to treat cancer patients in their time of need. I cannot help but fear that this Government’s failure to handle A-level, BTEC and GCSE results has cost the NHS and other sectors future key workers at a time when the country has remembered their necessity.

I also regret the disregard of teachers—a workforce of key workers who are too often forgotten about during the pandemic. This Government chose to implement an algorithm that devalued not only students but the professional expertise of teachers. At the height of the pandemic, teachers worked relentlessly to provide the requested evidence for predicted grades, while simultaneously providing increased pastoral support for their students. The Government should have listened to these key workers and valued their skills, rather than an algorithm steeped in bias. We must do everything we can to ensure that these key workers are never undervalued again. Our future generation depends on them.

For students in Coventry, the academic year ended in uncertainty because of the coronavirus, but it is because of this Government that their next academic year has needlessly begun with uncertainty too. Colleges and universities, which are already under the pressure of adapting to blended learning and ensuring a safe working and learning environment, have also been forced to pick up the pieces from the Government’s chaotic handling of results day. Even now, there are students still uncertain whether they are starting university in just a matter of weeks, still unsure about accommodation and still in the dark about their immediate future.

I wholeheartedly welcome the Government’s U-turn, which saw the abandonment of their algorithm that graded by background and not by aptitude. However, I do not welcome the lost futures, mental anguish and disruption incurred by waiting for its arrival. As an NHS worker, I knew that young people’s mental health was already in crisis. This summer’s exam results will have undoubtedly exacerbated that crisis, already strained by lockdown and restricted access to mental health crisis care. A survey by YoungMinds found that 80% of respondents agreed that the coronavirus pandemic has made their mental health worse, with 31% saying that they were no longer able to access support but still needed it. I am also deeply concerned about the further impact that this mishandling of young people’s future has had on their mental health—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. I call Sara Britcliffe.