Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what equality impact assessment his Department has undertaken on the effect of delaying GCSE examinations by three weeks in the 2020-21 academic year due to the covid-19 outbreak on (a) disabled candidates and (b) candidates with special educational needs.

The Department has considered the impact on students with particular protected characteristics, including those with special educational needs and disabilities, of a delay to the GCSE, AS and A level exam series in the summer. The additional teaching time released next year will benefit all students. There may be a particularly positive impact on those who are likely to be most affected by the disruption to education caused by COVID-19 (disadvantaged students, amongst whom students with special educational needs and disabilities are over-represented). As part of its consultation on changes to GCSE, AS and A level exams and assessments in 2021, Ofqual carried out an equalities impact assessment and did not identify specific negative impacts relating to a delay to exams next year.

Ofqual consulted on its proposed measures for academic year 2020/21 assessments of vocational and technical qualifications (VTQs) – which includes BTECs. These measures could include awarding organisations delivering VTQs considering the timing of assessments. As part of its consultation, Ofqual conducted an Equalities Impact Assessment on the impact of its proposals on students and did not identify specific negative impacts relating to timing of assessments.

Decisions about the timing of qualifications, other than GCSE, AS and A levels, are for individual awarding organisations – in the case of BTECs, Pearson is the awarding organisation. Pearson is currently consulting with its customers on the timetable for its BTEC examinations and will publish the timetable in due course.

Awarding organisations must also comply with the Equality Act 2010, and so are subject to their duties under the legislation when deciding on adaptations to their qualifications.