GCSE and A Level students to find out how exams will be awarded this morning

Education minister Peter Weir is due to make a statement to the Northern Ireland Assembly.

For the second year in a row, summer exams have been cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic.

In 2020, grades calculated by schools were used to award pupils their qualifications.

But that came after more than a third of grades given by schools to Northern Ireland’s A-Level and AS level students were lowered by the exams board CCEA.

Before Christmas 2020, Mr Weir had hoped exams would go ahead in 2021 but said that students would sit fewer of them.

However, he subsequently decided that summer exams for GCSEs, AS and A-Levels should not take place in 2021.

It is likely that schools will again have a significant role in deciding which results their pupils will receive, based on the work young people have completed in class.

However, results provided by schools will probably have to undergo some form of comparison or moderation and it is not clear how that will happen.

Meanwhile BTec and other vocational exams scheduled this year in Northern Ireland have also been cancelled.

Students taking those courses still do not know how they will be awarded their qualifications in 2021.