Education Secretary Gillian Keegan has been criticised for “dismissive” comments about A-level results as students across the country receive their grades.
Hundreds of thousands of students across the country received their grades in a year when ministers and the exams regulator in England aimed to return to pre-pandemic grading.
More than a quarter (27.2 per cent) of entries were awarded an A or A* grade, down by more than nine per cent from last year, but higher than pre-pandemic levels.
Ms Keegan, MP for Chichester, praised students for their “incredible resilience” as she congratulated them on their grades.
However, she also said that pupils receiving results today are unlikely to be asked for their grades by employers in ten years’ time.
"Exams are the fairest way of assessing people. Everybody does the same exam, at the same time."
— Sky News (@SkyNews) August 17, 2023
Sky's @JayneSeckerSky asks @GillianKeegan if the A-level students waiting for their results this year, are the unluckiest yearhttps://t.co/dME5BG5zGQ
📺 Sky 501, Virgin 602 pic.twitter.com/C5xUpi0IId
Speaking to Sky News, she said: “Somebody asked me ‘What will people ask you in ten years’ time?’
“They won’t ask you anything about your A-level grades in ten years’ time.
“They will ask you about other things you have done since then - what you have done in the workplace, what you did at university.
“And then, after a period of time, they don’t even ask you what you did at university.
“It is really all about what you do and what you can demonstrate and the skills that you learn in the workplace.”
However, her comments were criticised by shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson, who described the remarks as “incredibly rude and dismissive”.
Ms Phillipson, MP for Houghton and Sunderland South, said: “This is a nerve-wracking day for young people who’ve worked incredibly hard.
“The last thing that they need is the secretary of state offering comments like that, and it really does add insult to injury coming from a government that completely failed to put in place the kind of support that our young people needed coming out of the pandemic, after all of the disruption they’d experienced.”
The overall pass rates, the proportion of entries graded A* and E, has fallen to 97.3 per cent - the lowest level since 2008.
It comes after the Covid-19 pandemic led to an increase in top grades in 2020 and 2021, with results based on teacher assessments instead of exams.
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