Andy Richardson: Government fails to make the grade
It’s been a long week for those awaiting their GCSE results. Like those who last week received the worst set of A-level results in living memory, they fear inequality.
Almost five million pupils will receive GCSEs, and 97 per cent will be assigned by the algorithm that had a catastrophic effect on A-level students. They are, in fact, in a worse position – only 82 per cent of A-levels were based on the dodgy algorithm.
The Government’s Education Department had five months to get it right, instead, it gave us an A* Disasterclass in how to mismanage one of the key events in teenage life: exams. It also politicised a generation of young voters who will look elsewhere as they register to vote.
Private schools have been advantaged and state schools disadvantaged. It is not the fault of the parents of private school kids that the system is rigged. They invest in a private education to make sure their kids are a step ahead. But vast numbers of A-level students are newly disadvantaged because of where they live and the school they attended – not because they’re not bright and didn’t study hard. The GCSEs will bring more misery.
Further challenges lie ahead. Schools are due back in September. Right about now, we can expect a three-point slogan from Super Dominic Cummings and a press conference from BoJo.
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It’s difficult to go a day on social media without a rough and tumble police arrest being posted to Twitter. Deputy Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Steve House has described trial by social media as damaging. Too right.
Were it not for trial by social media, the killing of George Floyd would not have been reported. He’d have become a forgotten statistic, rather than a touchstone for change.
When the police campaigned successfully to introduce bodycams, they said those who’d done nothing wrong had nothing to fear. The same is true of officers filmed on smart phones whose actions are posted to social media.
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Health professionals are coming to terms with the scrapping of Public Health England and campaigners have called for punitive action against PHE.
But PHE is an agency of the Department of Health and Social Care. It is politically controlled, reporting to Matt Hancock and its budget was slashed by 40 per cent in the past seven years. So who is it that action should be taken against?
