Regulatory Action by Ofqual, Welsh Government and CCEA in response to the Examination Errors Report

Tuesday, 20 December 2011 16:07

During the summer 2011 examination season, exam paper errors in a small number of GCSE, GCE AS and A2 papers made it difficult or impossible for candidates to answer some questions. GCSEs, GCE AS and A levels are offered by six awarding organisations across England, Wales and Northern Ireland. They are AQA, CCEA, Edexcel, ICAAE, OCR and WJEC. Ofqual regulates GCSEs, GCE A levels and AS in England , and works with the regulators of these qualifications in Wales (Welsh Government) and Northern Ireland (CCEA) to ensure consistency across the three countries.

The General Conditions of Recognition require awarding organisations, in setting an assessment, to ensure that the content of the assessment is fit for purpose, appropriate for the method of assessment chosen and consistent with the specification for the qualification. Where an awarding organisation provides assessments with an unacceptable level of error the regulators would consider the awarding organisation to be in breach of the Recognition Conditions.

The regulators’ report into the nature and causes of the exam paper errors in the summer 2011 exam season has been published. The final report sets out how we went about our inquiry, and what we found at each awarding organisation. We say what we believe to be the root causes of exam paper errors, and make recommendations for improvement. If the recommendations are followed through, exam paper errors will be less likely in future, and if they do happen, awarding organisations will be able to deal with them better.

In response to the report, each awarding organisation involved needs to make changes to its ways of working. We expect each awarding organisation offering GCSEs, GCE AS and A levels to give formal undertakings under Recognition Condition B8 to each of the regulators to address the specific weaknesses we found in its operations. If an awarding organisation breaches its undertakings it will have breached a condition of its recognition and we may take further regulatory action against it.

We expect an awarding organisation to do everything it can to deliver error-free papers. Following the errors in the summer the awarding organisations have implemented short term additional quality assurance checking measures for exam papers that have already been produced. They are working on implementing longer term actions to enhance and develop their quality assurance arrangements to reduce the risk of future live error.

To improve the management and quality control of exam paper production and to reduce the risk of future live error in these high stake qualifications the regulators expect each awarding organisation to:

• provide assurance on the additional checking measures that they have implemented to secure error-free papers for the January 2012 series (by 9th January 2012) and any papers already finalised for June 2012 (by 21st January 2012) and to report to us on the outcomes of those checks
• provide a formal undertaking under Recognition Condition B8 to:
  • implement the necessary changes to its systems, processes and working practices for exam paper production to reduce the risk of future live errors, in particular committing to:
    • the necessary steps to improve the quality of its exam paper production; and
    • the timeline for the changes to be implemented
  • continue with any shorter term checking measures until the necessary changes to its systems, processes and working practices for exam paper production have taken effect
  • provide regular progress reports to the regulators.

The scale of activity required to achieve this outcome is more onerous for some awarding organisations than others. Therefore the regulators expect the undertakings provided by each awarding organisations to be reflective of the different levels of activity necessary for each awarding organisation to achieve the desired outcomes.

The undertakings will need to set out appropriate action, in view of the seriousness of these errors and the impact that they have on public confidence. We expect each awarding organisations to provide us with the necessary undertakings by the end of January 2012. If suitable undertakings are not provided we will consider the necessary steps to formally direct the awarding organisations to take the required courses of action.

We are also reviewing the General Conditions of Recognition, with the summer 2012 examination series in mind. We will consult in January on revisions to Conditions E4.1 and G1.1 which, if implemented, will allow the regulators to use the full range of their regulatory powers, including fining, should there be an unacceptable level of live error in the future.

The regulators are developing their regulatory arrangements, learning from the experience of exam errors this year. The GCSE, GCE, Principal Learning and Project Code of Practice is already under review, and lessons learned from the summer will feed into that review. In addition the regulators will develop:

• a set of redress principles, to guide awarding organisation decision making on redress in future
• guidance on how awarding organisations should communicate better if similar circumstances arise in future
• monitoring arrangements, to ensure the effectiveness of arrangements for question paper production in future.

Last Updated on Tuesday, 20 December 2011 16:56 Tags: Ofqual, education, examination regulation, qualifications, assessments