Mudar as métricas do problema não muda a essência do problema

«The figures are stark: 44.8 per cent of grades were A or A*, up from 38.5 per cent last year and 25.2 per cent in 2019. Analysis by exams regulator Ofqual also picked up a widening in the attainment gap for students who are on free school meals, deprived pupils and black pupils. But given these results weren't based on the same assessment as last year, and certainly not comparable to the exams taken by pupils in normal years, is it really fair to call this grade inflation? Next year's A-levels will be similarly abnormal. What is probably of greater concern, as we discuss on our latest Coffee House Shots podcast, how employers and admissions offices at further and higher education institutions can distinguish between the grades of the three different Covid cohorts, and those attained by students under 'normal' conditions. It's not even that easy to compare within the results, given different schools adopted different methods of teacher estimates. Some were far more rigorous and less generous than others. 

The most immediate impact of these results is that there is now a serious squeeze on university places, to the extent that some medical schools are offering students who achieved their offer grades £10,000 to switch to a course at another university. On this, there are fears once again that the most disadvantaged young people will end up at less prestigious institutions because they are much more likely to need the £10,000 than their peers. The government is paying £6,500 of the grant and the university £3,500.

Elsewhere, it will be harder for students who've done better than expected to move up, or indeed for those who've missed a place by just one grade to find a suitable university because so many students have achieved the offer grades and there are therefore use fewer empty spaces. Admissions service Ucas estimates that around 80,000 students will get a place through clearing this year. 

Once they're at university, though, the Covid generation may not be able to move on from the disruption of the past two years. A large number of institutions, including 20 out of the 24 Russell Group members, have said that some of their teaching will continue to be online in the new academic year.»

Excerto da newsletter da Spectator de 10 de Agosto

Ao contrário deste ano em que as médias desceram, no ano lectivo passado passou-se algo semelhante em Portugal, mas pelos vistos ninguém se preocupou seriamente com o problema que foi varrido para baixo do tapete.