Whose fault is the school exam results fiasco? Based on who has left their jobs in the past few weeks, you’d be forgiven for thinking it was officials in the Department for Education and at Ofqual, not the Secretary of State for Education. Gavin Williamson has apologised for the ‘stress’ caused to pupils, but remains in post and both he and the Prime Minister have been keen to shift the blame for the row onto the exam regulator. Today, Ofqual hit back.
The organisation’s chairman Roger Taylor appeared before the Education Select Committee this morning to present his version of events, and claimed that the decision to use what Boris Johnson has called a ‘mutant algorithm’ to moderate results came from Williamson, not the regulator. He told the MPs on the Committee that Ofqual had suggested to the Education Secretary that exams should not be cancelled and instead be held in a socially distanced manner, or to delay the tests.
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