Gavin Williamson was warned directly that the A-level and GCSE grading system could lead to hundreds of thousands of students being given the wrong results but decided to push ahead, The Times can reveal.
A senior source at the Department for Education disclosed that Sir Jon Coles, a former director-general there, wrote to Mr Williamson early last month to express concerns about the algorithm used by Ofqual.
He said that, at best, the model being applied to A-level and GCSE grading would be only 75 per cent accurate, meaning that hundreds of thousands of students would get the wrong grades. In the event Ofqual’s own tests on its algorithm, which were published last week, found that it was 60 per cent accurate.
Gavin Williamson claimed that the scale of the problem only became apparent at the weekend
TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER JACK HILL
In his letter,
