A-levels will be examined for years
GOOD or bad, A-level results always make the news every summer. In recent years, of course, the results have almost always been good ones.
Pass rates typically running at 99%-plus make it difficult to find much evidence of failure.
Hard to work out though how the States could describe 98% success in 2023 as being ‘equivalent’ to 99.4% achieved in 2019? A-level pass rates haven’t been this low since at least 2003.
However, it would be appropriate to congratulate the students who achieved this success, despite the disruption to their school in both Years 10 and 11, to the point that they did not even take GCSE examinations in 2021. That disruption made their achievements ‘testament to their hard work and determination’, said Grammar principal Kieran James.
Director of Public Health Dr Nicola Brink identified in her annual report that the long-term recovery from the Covid pandemic would be wide-ranging and might take some time. The direct and indirect impact of the pandemic could manifest itself in varying ways, she said, including exam results.
So Education, schools, colleges and teachers will have to be aware that these lower exam results could be sustained, and that extra support for pupils who lost nearly 20 weeks of in-class teaching in those unprecedented times in 2020 and 2021, might still be needed for some time to come.