Class of 2021 exams overshadowed by Gavin Williamson’s failures – The Yorkshire Post says

THIS should be a month of celebration for students receiving exam results which reflect and reward years of hard work in the classroom.
Next week's A-Level results are likely to be clouded by controversy.Next week's A-Level results are likely to be clouded by controversy.
Next week's A-Level results are likely to be clouded by controversy.

Yet, once again, their efforts risk being eclipsed by chaos and controversy over exams – and the grading of results – as a result of the Covid pandemic.

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And there’s an important point to be made ahead of next week’s scramble for university places as A-Level students weigh up their options. These students, let it be pointed out, are not at fault here. Quite the opposite. They’re the victims of Education Secretary Gavin Williamson’s calamitous leadership.

Next week's A-Level results are likely to spark a scramble for university places.Next week's A-Level results are likely to spark a scramble for university places.
Next week's A-Level results are likely to spark a scramble for university places.

It’s also not just the 2020 and 2021 exam cohorts who have been left at the mercy of the abiding failure of Boris Johnson’s government to take education more seriously during the pandemic. Schools and students are none the wiser about exam and learning protocols ahead of the 2021-22 academic year which begins next month.

Yet, at the same time, Sir Kevan Collins, the Government’s former education catch-up tsar, is warning that one “great legacies” of coronavirus will be growing inequality.

“One of the most difficult things to face in Covid is how children from different communities, different schools, different levels of support, have just had a completely variable experience,” he said as he questioned the fairness of exams.

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What a shame, therefore, that Sir Kevan had to resign after he lost a funding battle with the Treasury when schools needs the expertise of individuals like him rather than the incompetence of ministers such as Gavin Williamson.

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