GCSE and A-Level pupils face being given WRONG grades due to teachers manually inputting thousands of scores into AQA exam board’s online system that is ‘ripe for human error’
- Teachers are providing grades for pupils after the cancellation of summer exams
- However there are concerns the AQA online system is ‘ripe for human error’
- Year 10 and 12 pupils will be offered ‘face-to-face’ support from June 15
- Here’s how to help people impacted by Covid-19
Pupils risk being handed the wrong GCSE and A-Level grades amid concerns over teachers manually inputting thousands of grades the have assessed themsevles due to exams being cancelled by the coronavirus pandemic.
While WJEC, OCR and Pearson have set up systems where schools download a spreadsheet to fill in then then re-upload, concerns have been raised about AQA’s ‘grade entry portal’, which means marks must be imputting one-by-one.
School staff fear the system used by AQA, which is Britain’s biggest exam board, is therefore ‘ripe for basic human error’ according to one teacher, while others have been left ‘horrified’ at the process.
It comes after primary schools opened their doors to some pupils this week, but more than half a million children were kept at home by their parents, amid concerns over the on-going pandemic.
Secondary schools are to begin offering face-to-face support to pupisl in Years 10 and 12 from June 15, to help them prepare for GCSEs and A-Level exams next year..
Students risk being given the wrong GCSE and A-Level marks due to AQA’s online system
Dr Mark Thornber, from Durham Johnston School, told Schoolsweek: ‘The whole system is designed so there can be no real oversight from the school.
‘Grades could be horribly wrong because of a transcription error – a swap. There is a process for challenging that in the summer, but it will be too late for the pupil trying to get into sixth form.’
Thousands of pupils will be handed marks by teachers after summer exams were cancelled
A spokesperson for AQA said: ‘We know some schools would like to be able to send us their data in a spreadsheet and we gave this some serious thought – but the fact is there’s just too high a risk of errors or viruses.
‘Even minor issues with formatting could cause problems, so entering data directly into our system will make sure we have it in the right format, with lots of checks built in.’