A choice on whether or not to delay subsequent 12 months’s GCSE and A-level exams can be made “very quickly”, colleges minister Nick Gibb has mentioned.
Ministers have been contemplating the problem since mid-June, he informed the BBC, including: “We’ll decide as quickly as we are able to.”
He mentioned the choice could be made with examination boards and the regulator, and take different UK nations under consideration.
It comes as most pupils in England and Wales put together to return to high school.
For a lot of, will probably be their first time within the classroom since March.
Labour has known as for the exams – normally taken in Might and June – to be pushed again to mid-summer to assist deal with the influence of coronavirus.
On Monday, shadow schooling secretary Kate Inexperienced mentioned college students beginning 12 months 11 and 13 in September had “a mountain to climb”, having missed months of education.
Scheduling exams for later subsequent 12 months would enable extra catch-up educating time, she mentioned.
Mr Gibb mentioned the federal government needed to think about the time wanted for examination marking and the college admissions course of in making its determination.
“The problems usually are not easy,” he informed the BBC.
“Now we have to consider the opposite nations within the UK which additionally use the GCSEs and A-levels of their time period dates; it’s a must to consider the time for marking, ensuring outcomes are delivered on a sure date for college admissions and so on.
“There are an entire vary of things that the examination boards, Ofqual and the Division (for Schooling) are , however we’ll type a call very quickly.”
Pushed on whether or not a solution would come by October, Mr Gibb added: “It is going to be very quickly as a result of we all know colleges must know the reply to this query.”
This 12 months’s exams had been dogged by chaos and left academics, dad and mom and pupils calling for a serious rethink of subsequent summer season’s exams.
Practically 40% of A-level grades awarded to college students utilizing an algorithm had been under academics’ predictions, with deprived college students notably badly affected.
Days after outcomes had been introduced, and following widespread criticism, the federal government carried out a U-turn and determined to base grades on academics’ estimates as an alternative.
However many pupils had been left in limbo, having already missed out on college locations for this 12 months’s consumption.
