Tens of thousands of A-level students face disappointment on results day next week, amid warnings that nearly 100,000 fewer As and A*s could be awarded as the government seeks to return grades to pre-pandemic levels.
Up to 50,000 candidates this summer are likely to miss out on the top grades they might have expected last year, according to one estimate, throwing applications for the most competitive universities into doubt.
The sharp drop in grades is in line with government plans to return A-level results in England to 2019 levels this summer, after the Covid pandemic led to an increase in top grades in 2020 and 2021, when results were based on teacher assessments instead of exams.
To get back to 2019 levels, however, the percentage of A*s will have to fall from 14.6% last year to 7.8%, meaning 59,000 fewer A*s and 36,000 fewer As, according to the Centre for Education and Employment Research (CEER) at the University of Buckingham.
Research by the CEER said: “Assuming a reduction in two subjects per person, this would mean about 30,000 students not getting the A* grades they could have expected last year, and nearly 50,000 not getting the A*/A grade.”
Slightly different arrangements are in place this year in Wales and Northern Ireland, where information about the content of some papers was given out in advance, and Covid disruption was taken into account in the marking. In Wales, grade boundaries will be set midway between 2019 and last year’s results.
England has taken the toughest line. Last week the schools minister, Nick Gibb, said results in England needed to return to pre-pandemic levels to ensure GCSE and A-levels carried weight and credibility with employers, universities and colleges.
“A typical student in 2019 – given the same level of ability, the same level of diligence – the likelihood is that same student would get the same grades in 2023 as they would have done in 2019,” he told PA Media.
Results peaked in 2021, when 45% of all A-level grades were either an A or an A*. This year’s set of results will be the culmination of a two-year process, with exams in summer 2022 graded midway between those of 2019 and those assessed by teachers in 2021, and a return to 2019 results this summer.
However, there are doubts in some quarters about whether the government will achieve its target to return to 2019 grading levels, as well as concern about the effect on students.
Prof Alan Smithers, the director of the CEER, said: “My view is that the percentages of top grades will be reduced, but not to 2019 levels, because of the pain and upset it will cause to students and parents, because only England of the three administrations is seeking to do it this year, and because of the wider spread of A* across subjects, some of which used to have a lot, and others which didn’t.”
According to England’s exams regulator, Ofqual, while the objective is to return to pre-pandemic results, additional protection has been built in this year that allows grade boundaries to be altered if senior examiners find countrywide evidence of a drop in standards compared with 2019.
A Department for Education spokesperson said: “This year GCSE and A-level grading is largely returning to normal, in line with plans set out by Ofqual almost two years ago, to make sure qualifications maintain their value and students get the opportunities they deserve.
“This means national results are expected to be similar to those in pre-pandemic years, and a student should be just as likely to achieve a particular grade this year as they would have been before the pandemic. The number of top grades also has no bearing on the number of university places available.”
