Education: Warning that GCSE grades in Northern Ireland must not be devalued after students here got far more A grades than England and Wales

Exam results must not be devaluedExam results must not be devalued
Exam results must not be devalued
We need to know why GCSE results in Northern Ireland were so far above those England, an expert in education says today.

Dr William Kitchen writes in the News Letter after NI got far more A grades – 30.4% at GCSE than England, 21% – and far more pass grades – 82% compared to 67%. (To read Dr Kitchen’s article, ‘Something is awry ... ​we need to know why NI GCSE results are far better compared to rest of UK’, click here)

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He says that if the reason NI was far above England and Wales at GCSE was because the province was doing something right, then it is important that the educational establishment understands that success.

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But in what he describes as the “far more likely scenario that there is a lack of comparability between the assessment procedures within each jurisdiction to the extent that, for example, an A grade in Northern Ireland is not translatable to an A grade in England or Wales, then we would be doing children in Northern Ireland a disservice by ultimately devaluing their GCSE grades”.

Meanwhile, Stormont’s education minister Paul Givan is creating a new group to establish a management authority for controlled education – after claiming the Education Authority is failing in its duty towards the sector.

And Mr Givan has expressed concern that Labour’s policy of charging VAT on private school fees will affect some grammar schools in Northern Ireland.

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