Oxford Honours It’s Offers
Oxford University Has 39 Colleges. For Its 2020 Intake Worcester College Made 83% of Its Offers To State Schools & Has Agreed To Honour All of Them. Not All Universities Decided To Honour Their Offers Despite The Algorithm Being Abandoned In The Government & Ofqual U Turn. Exams Were Disrupted & Dispensed With This year Due School Closures Which Began March 20th 2020 Due To The Covid Virus
In The Wake of The Chaotic Corona Virus Exam Fiasco Oxford University Showed Some Decisive Leadership By Assuring All Students, Even Those Who Received Downgraded Results Due To The Dubious Algorithm Grading, That It Would Keep Open All Offers Made To Those Students Who Still Wished To Accept Them. Speaking To BBC Radio 4, Admissions Tutor For Worcester College Oxford Said, Laura Ashe “It Was The Morally Right Thing To Do”.
Exam Results Came Out On Thursday August 13th 2020. Various Governmental Changes Were Made Within Days Shortly Before & After Them Being Released & This Caused Chaos For All Concerned Including Students, Parents, Teachers, Universities, UCAS (The Universities & Colleges Admission Service), Ofqual Itself (The Office of Qualifications & Examinations Regulations) & The Department For Education, Headed Up By Gavin Williamson.
Ofqual Chairperson Roger Taylor Announced Monday August 17 2020 That It Would After All Allow Teacher Assessments On A’Level & GCSE School Assignments In Place of The Computer Standardization & Moderation Process Introduced Because of The Corona Virus, Which Saw Schools Shut Down From March 20th 2020. He Said “What We Had Tried To Do Was Set Exams Without Exams Taking Place…But It Is Clear That This Was Not An Acceptable Experience For Young People”. Both He & Williamson Apologized. To Ensure Fair Competition Among Universities The Government Had Imposed A 5% Excess Cap On All University Places Freed Up Due To The Drop In Attendance By Foreign Students. It Also U Turned On The 5% Excess Cap & Lifted It.
Chief Ofcom Regulator Sally Collier Resigned Just Over A Week Later On Tuesday August 25th 2020. Collier Had Helped Develop The Algorithm Which Caused Disadvantaged Students To See Their Results Disproportionately Downgraded & Private School Students See Theirs Boosted. Complaints Were Writhe After The Algorithm Downgraded 40 Per Cent of A-level Results & Numerous Parents & Students Appealed On The Basis It Was Faulty. Ofqual & Education Minister Gavin Williamson Accepted Her Resignation (But Notably Williamson Did Not Tender His; He Had Previously Said On Saturday August 15 2020, Just Days Before “No U Turn. No Change.”).
Ashe Said “For Us, At A Very Simple Level, It Was Clear To Us Before The Results Came Out That These Students Were Not Going To Have Sat Exams & Therefore We Took The View That There Wasn’t Going To Be Any New Information There That Could Justify Rejecting Someone To Whom We’d Made An Offer.” She Added “And Of Course When We Did Get The Results…We Discovered Something Much More Disturbing, Which Was Quite How Much Already Disadvantaged Students Were Being Further Disadvantaged By The Way These Grades Were Being Given”.
Some Quarters Have Said That The Teacher Assessments Were Too High, To Which She Says “But Then The Algorithm That They Applied To Pull Those Down Literally Copied The Inequalities That Are Currently Existing In Our Education System.”
She Explained That 83% Of 2020 Worcester Offers Went To State Schools & Nearly A Quarter of Them Had Their Results Downgraded, Compared To 1/10th of Those From Private Schools.
Chair of The Education Select Committee Robert Halfon Said He Believed The Organization Was No Longer Fit For Purpose & It’s Abolition should Be Considered. He Said There Needed To Be Full Transparency Of The Correspondence Between The Department of Education & Ofqual To See When Concerns Were Raised. In July His Committee Had Warned That “Ofqual’s Standardisation Model Aims To Adjust Grades To Ensure They Are Broadly In Line With Previous Years … There Are Concerns About Risks Of Using Historic Data, Which Might Not Be Fair For … Schools Which Are On An Upward Trajectory.”
The Russell Group CEO Dr Tim Bradshaw Said “We Know The Changing Situation Is Creating Uncertainty For Students And Universities. However, There Are Limits To What Can Be Done By The University Sector Alone To Address That Uncertainty Without Stretching Resources To The Point That It Undermines The Experience For All, Not To Mention Ensuring Students And Staff Are Kept Safe As We Follow The Steps Needed To Fight The Covid-19 Pandemic.” The Group Represents 24 Leading Universities, Many of Whom, Compared To Oxford, Announced They Would Not Honour All Original Offers, Seeing A Number of Students Lose Their University Places or Having To Wait A Year If Their Appeals Are Successful.
Nick Hillman, Director Of The Higher Education Policy Institute, Said: “In The Cold Light Of Day, There Will Need To Be A Careful Postmortem To Ensure This Year’s Fiasco Never Happens Again.”
