No exams for BTEC students
VOCATIONAL exams have been cancelled in February and March, it has been announced.
Whether spring and summer exams go ahead is also under consideration.
The change in process for assessing technical and vocational qualifications was decided this week by the Department for Education.
Some students at the College of Further Education have already sat their exams this year. However, it will mean any further scheduled external assessments for BTEC Level 2 tech awards, firsts, technical and Level 3 nationals, as well as qualifications for other awarding organisations in the upcoming months, will now not go ahead.
This follows the instruction given by UK Education Secretary Gavin Williamson to exams regulator Ofqual on Wednesday to start working with awarding organisations and education professionals on alternative arrangements for VTQ assessments due to take place in spring and summer 2021.
Jacki Hughes, executive principal of The Guernsey Institute, said it would await information from its awarding organisations with instructions about the new process for assessing students for the work they are doing and about how those assessments will contribute to their qualification.
‘Locally, this means that it is now clear we will need to adapt the way we assess our students for the remainder of this academic year,’ she said.
‘The consultation carried out by Ofqual should take place over the coming weeks, after which we will expect clear guidance on how these assessment processes will work for Bailiwick students.
‘At that stage we will ensure that our students, parents, employers and other stakeholders are fully informed about what this means for the qualifications we teach so that our students are assessed for all of their hard work and effort so far and are able to make progress to achieve their planned qualifications and take their next steps.’
GCSE and A-level exams were cancelled at the beginning of this month when Mr Williamson said students would, instead, have their results based on teacher assessments.
It came after Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, announced that it would not be ‘possible or fair’ for A-level and GCSE exams to take place in the summer as schools there are shut until at least mid-February as part of the effort to stem the rising number of cases of Covid-19.
One option being considered to help with grading are shorter exams.
IGCSEs exams are still happening.
