Class of 2020: A Social Experiment?

The recent A-level fiasco by the Tory government has upturned plans and put futures in turmoil for nearly 40% of students, who have had their grades downgraded. What if all of this was not only avoidable, but an opportunity for the government to do something really significant?

I believe it was Steve Jobs who said “simple can be harder than complex” and the Tory government has certainly had its fair share of struggles in keeping plans and policies simple. The conflicting messages during lockdown are all a testament to the government’s knee-jerk policies — some of which make no sense whatsoever. My favourite: one can’t go to the gym for exercise, but can sit in a pub drinking one’s troubles merrily away.

But to give the government some credit, not all of their policies over the past few months have been hastily drafted. After the government took the decision to cancel exams in March, they had plenty of time to come up with a plan of how to allocate grades to enable students to move on to the next chapter of their lives. And that they certainly did — they came up with a plan so elaborate and complicated that it involved teachers and schools and data points and standardisation…