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Schools: Assessments

Answer

The errors that have come to light in GCSEs and A Levels are extremely serious and are unacceptable. As the regulator of awarding organisations and the qualifications they offer, the Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation (Ofqual) have taken swift and robust action to hold awarding organisations to account for these mistakes, and to check that any mistakes in as yet untaken exams are identified and put right. Ofqual will also be checking the awarding organisations' arrangements for securing redress, to ensure they are fair both to the candidates who were directly affected, and those who were not. The Secretary of State for Education has had regular updates from the chief executive of Ofqual, Glenys Stacey, on Ofqual's current action. He has also asked to be kept informed about further steps they will be taking to ensure that awarding organisations do not repeat these mistakes. Fiona Pethick, Director of Regulation at Ofqual has written to the hon. Member providing further details and a copy of her reply has been placed in the House Libraries.Letter from Fiona Pethick, dated 28 June 2011:"I am responding to your parliamentary questions on behalf of Glenys Stacey, the Chief Executive of the Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation (Ofqual). Ofqual is the independent regulator of qualifications, examinations and assessments in England and of vocational qualifications in Northern Ireland.""You will be aware that a number of your parliamentary questions relating to errors in this summer's examination papers have been passed from the Secretary of State to Ofqual to answer as they fall within our regulatory remit. These errors in examination papers are unacceptable and Ofqual is taking action to understand the root cause, ensure candidates affected get as fair a result as possible, and to consider what changes may be needed in future to awarding organisation processes and procedures. Later this week we will be publishing details of our inquiry into these errors.""There are three particular areas where Ofqual is not in a position to answer your questions. First, we do not hold information ""about which specific individual or centre identified the error. Secondly, we do not hold information about the dates on which checks on examination papers were made, nor do we hold information about the numbers of papers that were or were not re-checked. (Both, ref PQ nos: 62551, 62553, 62552, 62554, 62555, 62556, 62563, 62568,). Thirdly it is not possible to estimate the maximum and average difference to a mark issued as each situation is different. (Ref PQ: 62566).""Where we are in a position to answer your questions, I have grouped our responses below by theme.""Action Ofqual has taken""(Ref PQ no: 62561)""On 7 June Ofqual wrote to all GCSE and A level awarding organisations to require them to carry out additional quality checks on examinations that had yet to be taken. Each awarding organisation provided Ofqual with written assurances by 13 June that such additional quality checks had been made or would be made before papers were taken.""When it became apparent that further, avoidable, errors had occurred, I visited OCR to discuss these errors. Glenys Stacey and I also met with the Chief Executive Officers of the Awarding Organisations delivering GCSEs and GCEs last week.""We have published two statements on our website - one specifically aimed at candidates and another setting out the action we are taking. Ofqual has also published a detailed list of the specific examination papers that have been affected so that candidates can know whether or not they are affected and to know which awarding organisation to contact if they wish for further information.""We have announced that we will publish, this week, information about our inquiry into the errors this summer to establish all the facts, identify the root causes and make recommendations for action to help ensure, so far as possible, that such avoidable errors do not happen in future.""Live errors""(Ref PQ nos: 62565, 62567)""The published examination timetables show that between 9 and 22 June this year, 438 GCSE and 345 GCE papers were scheduled.""The following papers taken by candidates in England had errors in them which were not identified and corrected before the paper was taken. The notification dates are also included.""(Ref PQ nos: 62553, 62555, 62556. 62554, 62563, 62552, 62568, 62551)"

Awarding organisation	Subject	Date Sat	Date notified to Ofqual
AQA	GCE AS Business Studies—Unit 2 Managing a Business: BUSS2	24 May 2011	3 June 2011
AQA	GCE AS Computing—Unit 2 Computer Components, The Stored Program Concept and the Internet: COMP2	7 June 2011	8 June 2011
AQA	GCE AS Geography—Unit 2 Geographical Skills: GEOG2	24 May 2011	3 June 2011
AQA	GCSE Mathematics (new specification)—Unit 2 Number and Algebra: 43602F¹	21 June 2011	21 June 2011
CCEA	GCSE Business Studies—Unit 2 Business Development	6 June 2011	7 June 2011
Edexcel	GCE AS Biology—Unit 1 Lifestyle, Transport, Genes and Health: 6BI01	16 May 2011	17 May 2011
OCR	GCSE Latin—Unit 3 Latin Prose Literature: A403/02	20 June 2011	20 June 2011
OCR	GCEAS Maths-Decision—Mathematics 1:4736	26 May 2011	27 May 2011
OCR	GCE A2 Physics A—Fields, Particles and Frontiers of Physics: G485	21 June 2011	21 June 2011
¹ Printing error affecting some of the question papers.

"Of these errors, three came to light after the additional checks had been made.""You also asked a series of questions about Edexcel Biology. We understand that 17,003 candidates sat this particular paper. Only one mark is affected for this particular AS unit so it is unlikely to have a significant impact on students' future education opportunities. (Ref PQ no; 62562)""Complaints""Ofqual has received complaints in relation to two papers that are mentioned in your Parliamentary Questions. These are:""OCR GCE AS level ICT coursework. Ofqual received a complaint about this paper on 16 June 2011. We have requested a detailed response from OCR to ascertain the number of candidates potentially affected by this complaint, the timeline, the rationale for not re-issuing a corrected mark scheme and the specific instructions given to moderators. (Ref PQ no: 62570)""Edexcel GCE AS Economics paper. Ofqual received a number of complaints about this paper and Edexcel have confirmed that although the paper does not contain an error it does contain a ""question which could be answered in more than one way. Guidance has been issued to the marking team highlighting the two acceptable answers. (Ref PQ no: 62569)""Redress and actions that awarding organisations have taken""(Ref PQ no: 62551, 62552, 62553, 62554, 62555, 62556, 62563, 62564, 62568)""Ofqual has written to all relevant awarding organisations highlighting the importance of taking effective steps to limit the impact on students' marks and grades. The appropriate mechanisms for redress will differ depending on the context and we have confirmed that the following options could be considered:""Adjustments of the marking scheme to omit the question concerned or to give all students credit for the question concerned,""Taking account of all available evidence in awarding grades, including:""statistical analyses to understand any potential impact on students performance on questions that followed the error, and""statistical analyses comparing students' performance on the affected units with their performance on other units.""Allowing applications for special consideration, where appropriate,""Providing a no fee re-sit at the next opportunity, and""Providing an additional no fee re-sit before the end of the summer 2011 series.""Each awarding organisation has .been required to provide Ofqual with a detailed report for each affected question paper which details the actions planned, informed by the analysis, together with the rationale for those actions. These will be received in the coming weeks once marking is completed.""In all cases awarding organisations have sent a letter of apology to schools and colleges (known as centres) where an error in an examination paper has come to light.""For the AQA GCSE Mathematics paper where the issue was a printing error, AQA have instigated an investigation with the printer of this paper.""Errata and re-prints""(Ref PQ no: 62571, 62572)""It is established policy and practice, both by Ofqual and its predecessor organisation, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA), to require awarding organisations to provide timely notification of incidents that pose a threat to the integrity of the qualifications system. In the context of examination errors, we require awarding organisations to notify the regulators where an error is found that may threaten the validity of the assessment, An element of professional judgement has always been required about the nature and impact of an error.""Where an error is found before an examination paper is taken, either the paper is replaced or an erratum is issued. We routinely collect information at the end of each examination, series about the number of errata issued. We can confirm that in 2010 there were 34 erratum notices, in 2009 there were 34 erratum notices, in 2008 there were 18 erratum notices and in 2007 there were 27 erratum notices. For the 2011 examination series we will receive final information about errata that were issued prior to 7 June 2011 once all the examinations have been taken. However, we do know that there were 15 erratum notices which were issued as a result of the additional checks that we required.""For each of the following awarding organisations we can confirm that the following errors were identified and rectified as a result of the checks. (Ref PQ nos: 62573, 62574)"

	Number of errors	Erratum	Clarification notice	Replaced
AQA	8	6	0	2
Edexcel	4	1	3	0
OCR	4	4	0	0

"Please be assured that Ofqual takes the issue of errors in examinations very seriously and we will continue to oversee the actions of the awarding organisations to make sure that candidates are not unfairly advantaged or disadvantaged.""I would welcome the opportunity to meet with you to discuss these issues and to hear your views on the regulation of awarding organisations. My office will be in touch to offer dates."

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

62551; 530 c985-90W

Session

2010-12

Subjects

GCSE GCE A-level

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk