Education minister: Pupils will not face a repeat of the exams fiasco

The minister said he is confident that contingency planning will prevent a repeat of the problems that came about following the cancellation of GCSE and A-level exams during the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic.

Mr Weir, speaking to the News Letter following a visit to Glenlola Collegiate Girls School, in Bangor, Co Down to mark the reopening of schools following a two-week closure, also stressed the importance of a joint approach to exams with other UK nations.

“It’s unlikely we’ll reach a situation again where exams don’t happen,” he said.

“Whatever process is put in place, unless everything is behind us by June, we will be in a situation where there are individual students who will not be able to take particular examinations — if they’re diagnosed with Covid a day before the exam, for example.

“So far there’s already been announcements made on what the general intention is and what some of the mitigations are. That is part of an ongoing process. But also, as part of that, the exams body in Northern Ireland has been tasked with contingency planning. Arising out of that, there is also an independent review into what happened in 2020 to make sure problems don’t arise again.”

Asked if he is confident the problems encountered this year won’t be repeated next year, Mr Weir said: “I’d be confident that would be the case. Obviously there could be all sorts of curveballs thrown at you in life, but as much as possible will be done to ensure that we don’t see any repeat of that situation.”

On the need for a joint approach for exams across the UK, Mr Weir said: “I think the point, largely speaking, is that particularly with A-levels our students are competing for places both for university and also in terms of the jobs market, so there’s got to be comparability when it comes to exams across the UK.

“The one thing we can’t afford to do is go on a solo run. At A-Level, about 20% of the exams done here are set by largely English boards. If you did anything particularly divergent here, it would mean that you would not only be creating disparity and potentially disadvantage for our students here compared with students across the water, you would actually be doing that with students within Northern Ireland.

“We would look in particular at what the UK government does, not because it’s the UK government but largely because the English market is around 80% of the UK market.”

• Morning View, page 16