Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:55 pm on 26 January 2021.
Thank you very much, Siân, for your comments. We've had an independent review. You have quoted at length from its report. I do not feel that there is any need, or indeed any further help a further review at this time will be. What we need now is to ensure that the lessons of the Louise Casella report are learnt. If the Member was being fair, I'm sure she would acknowledge that already in the way in which we have handled this situation, both within this Government and without the Government, is reflective of the recommendations, first of all, in the initial report by Louise Casella's group, and in the subsequent full report.
I'm very grateful to Louise and her team for the work that they have done. There are, as I said, valuable lessons to be learnt, which are already being enacted by myself and those that are working with us, to ensure that the awarding of qualifications this year does not cause the distress and difficulties that it did for learners and educators last year.
It is very important that we make the distinction between how last year's grades were arrived at and how this year's grades were arrived at. Last year, the standardisation, as was pointed out in Louise's report, relied too heavily on an algorithm, to ensure that there was fairness across the system, and to try and mitigate the concerns that we will have to try and mitigate again this year, which are legitimate concerns about unintentional bias, about how this system potentially has equalities impacts, as was outlined in previous reviews of last year's centre-assessed grades. We need, now, to mitigate against that, and that is what everybody that is working on qualifications for this year is committed to doing.